


Foresight

by Kantayra of Yore (Kantayra)



Series: The Crimson Codex [3]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-03-01
Updated: 2004-03-31
Packaged: 2017-10-19 04:00:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 29,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/196630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kantayra/pseuds/Kantayra%20of%20Yore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Book Two of 'The Crimson Codex'. 2044. A call from old friends brings Buffy, Spike, and Drusilla back to the Hellmouth. With an ominous prophecy hanging over her head, Buffy must come to realize that not even her foreknowledge can save all whom she loves...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_2044…_

The beat of some distant music pulsed through the night, blocking out the bustling sounds of the carnival and causing the two vampires to rock to its beat as they finished feeding off their kill.

With a final suck of blood, Buffy pulled back and wiped her mouth. Checking the shadows to make sure their victim would remain safely hidden until dawn, she shook off her gameface.

“Dance?” Her companion smiled at the youngster’s well-learned caution.

Buffy hesitated for a second before grinning. “Whatever you say, _dahling_ ,” she joked before taking the pale hand offered and swaying to the pulsating rhythm. 

“Dances are like clocks. Wind them too tight, and night spins _rooound_ away!” Drusilla rolled her neck around with the elongated ‘round’, pulling Buffy in closer for the dance.

This was the side of Dru that Buffy had nearly always seen. Free, light-hearted, an almost childlike innocence in her eyes. One night she and Spike had spent alone, he’d told her that Drusilla seemed more relaxed now than she had been before, her madness receded. He credited the change to Angelus’ death and the weight lifted from Dru’s shoulders now that her tormentor was well and truly gone. Whatever the cause, Buffy couldn’t deny that her grandsire wasn’t the nutcase all those slayer books had made her out to be…

“And the foxtails dance with us, sparkling green in the moonlight…”

Well, okay, so Dru still technically _was_ insane. But it was a more coherent kind. “You said it,” Buffy laughed, well accustomed to odd statements of this sort by now. The scary thing was Drusilla was almost starting to make sense to her.

“Who needs boys when we can make our own fun?” Dru let Buffy dip her back with a sigh.

“I’m _so_ going to kill him when he gets back,” Buffy announced with a little growl, pulling back from Dru with a little pirouette.

Drusilla laughed and clapped her hands and, like that, the dance was done. “Our boy should make his bed more carefully,” she sing-songed, making her way primly down the pitch-black corridor between two tents that led out of the summer carnival grounds. “Don’t want to let the dust in.” She winked at Buffy.

Buffy couldn’t help but laugh at that, following after her grandsire. “Not sure a dusting’s in order,” she countered. “Just a good, solid threat of one. With chains.”

Drusilla snickered and walked beside Buffy, playing restlessly with the end of the former slayer’s long braid. It had become something of a companionable, comfortable gesture between the two of them. Dressing the other up, playing with hair and makeup. Sister stuff, almost.

Buffy couldn’t help but grin at her latest creation. It had taken all her persuasive powers to trick Dru into the short black leather skirt and the deep maroon blouse, but the elder vampiress looked absolutely stunning in the outfit.

Skipping ahead and swirling about in the shadows as if she owned them, Buffy breathed in deep the smells of the warm English night. Outside of the festivities, the town was silent as a tomb and just as dark. The black silk of the sleek formal dress Drusilla had dressed her in that evening clung to her body like a lover’s caress and, for the first time, she admitted that maybe Dru didn’t have the worst taste in clothes, after all. Or maybe it was just this invigorating, wonderful night.

“Still hungry?” Drusilla asked, eyes wide in surprise.

“Nah,” Buffy assured her with a toothy grin. “Just don’t want the hunt to end.”

“Wicked sun,” Dru pouted in agreement.

Buffy sniffed the night. “A few hours left…” she commented casually.

“Keep playing, or go home?” Drusilla grinned.

It really was a rhetorical question. As much as Buffy loved the night, her urges always made this decision for her.

The two vampiresses dipped and glided through the shadows, occasionally brushing the neck of some unsuspecting human they passed with gentle fingertips. Their ‘victims’ merely shivered against the night, unaware of how close to death they had just come. The power to take life on a whim was intoxicating and left Buffy breathless and excited.

The two of them hadn’t found a temporary replacement boy tonight. Since Spike had first wandered off two weeks ago without any explanation, the two women had been feasting upon the virile young men this community had to offer. But tonight blood had won over sex, leaving the two of them alone.

Buffy had long since learned to cease caring about pesky matters like gender.

She placed a soft kiss on her grandmother’s throat and earned herself a purr in response. Eternally graceful feet stumbled in their eagerness to get inside and into bed.

Buffy nuzzled Drusilla’s raven locks and gasped when fingers glided over her back, caressing her erotically through the black silk. Her own arms wrapped around Dru’s waist, and a brief pang of disappointment overcame her that her lover for tonight wouldn’t be her sire. Oh, Drusilla knew how to make Buffy’s body hum with pleasure, but that was nothing compared with the knowledge that it was Spike on top of her, inside her…

Not to mention that she still preferred men. So did Dru, to tell the truth. But they both knew how to compensate.

“Pretty little bells,” Drusilla whispered against the crown of Buffy’s head, growing strangely still. “Sing me your song…”

Buffy froze at that as well and pulled back. Her grandsire was frozen in place, head cocked to the side at an odd angle, black eyes open wide and unseeing. A shiver ran down Buffy’s spine. She’d seen these trances all too often over the past decades, and had come to both fear and trust whatever unholy visions spoke through Dru. It still sent chills down her spine just how abruptly they came and went, however.

“Such a sweet family,” Dru commented, her voice sounding distant, ghostly. “But the poor, poor pretty thing caught in the middle.” A deranged giggle that was far from Dru’s usual mad laugh. All of her mannerisms were slightly off when she was in trance. “Loved by both and caught between them.” She tisked lightly. “It’s always the one loved most that dies. Bloody, painful, _wrong_ deaths. Wreaths of dust flying through the air.” Her arms stretched out over her head and then wide out to the sides, as if she were feeling the edges of the cloud of dust that would explode from her body on that day when her unlife finally ended. “If only they’d loved each other better…” The words trailed off in a whisper as silent as the wind.

Buffy gulped. She’d been skeptical of Dru’s visions for the longest time. But when they came like this – overwhelming the personality of her grandsire completely – not a one had proven false.

But what the words meant, now that was a trickier proposition. Spike had gotten downright uncanny at figuring out these prophecies; Buffy was still getting there. But this one seemed simple enough.

It foretold of death. And, if the vision came to Dru, inevitably the death of someone close. A ‘poor, poor pretty thing’ caught in middle of bloodshed between two lovers and turned to dust. An uncomfortable tingle ran up Buffy’s spine. As horrible as this prediction was, it wasn’t so difficult to decipher…

Almost as if a switch had been flicked, Drusilla was herself once more, blissfully oblivious to the prophetic words that had taken her body as vessel. “Has cold feet, our girl does,” she smiled at Buffy with that dark, mysterious smile.

Buffy managed to respond with something approaching a smile herself. Anything to erase the memory of those words…

“Misses her sweet love,” Dru guessed.

“He’s never been away this long,” Buffy responded, the chill of the previous scene already fading. If Drusilla was nothing else, she was wonderfully diverting after one of her visions.

“Our William will find his way back to us in his own time,” Drusilla cooed softly, stroking Buffy’s hair comfortingly.

Buffy managed a nasty grin at that. “What will we do to him when he does?” she inquired.

Drusilla threw her head back and laughed at that. Still fighting off girlish giggles, she crooked her forefinger to Buffy, encouraging the blonde vampiress to move in closer and hear her whispered secret.

“Best to just go with the moment.” Drusilla’s breath was a cool, erotic breeze against Buffy’s ear. “Get too predictable and poor Spike will get bored. Always better to keep him guessing.”

Buffy’s eyes widened in surprise, and she pulled back to look into Dru’s eyes. “You do it on purpose!” she accused. “All the crazy fickle stuff. Just to keep him interested.”

An enigmatic smile curved Drusilla’s lips. “Quite a skill to keep such a beautiful creature spellbound for centuries,” she countered coyly.

Buffy grinned. “Sneaky,” she agreed, nuzzling her elder affectionately.

Dru purred, and golden flecks shone in her eyes with excitement. “Inside…” she practically begged, her hand slipping down the back of Buffy’s dress to find smooth bare flesh.

Buffy’s own demon stirred in response, and her lips crashed down on Dru’s, hands clutching the elder vampiress’ hair as the two of them stumbled into the bedroom. Overwhelmed by the mingling scents of their desire, Buffy didn’t even catch the voyeur’s musk until they’d crashed through the bedroom door in a mass of groping limbs.

Dru’s nostrils flared only a second after Buffy’s, and together they turned desire-yellowed eyes to the intruder sprawled across the center of the king-sized mattress.

“Don’t halt on account of me, luvs.” Scarred eyebrow raised at a cocky angle and lecherous smirk firmly in place, Spike lay back completely nude amidst the red satin sheets. The foreplay between the two women in his life had obviously excited him, and his cock strained upward, hard and eager, the pale fingers of his left hand curled loosely around his thick member.

Buffy gulped. She’d gotten used to reunion sex over the years. Drusilla took off several times a year, and Spike had done his own wanderings on occasion. Even Buffy herself had spent a handful of odd nights away from her family. But never had she felt this overwhelming desire before. Her demon threatened to consume her in a way that it hadn’t for over a decade now. Apparently, it wasn’t just her body, heart, and mind that had wanted her sire desperately over these last two weeks.

“Daddy’s home,” Drusilla commented, her expression uncharacteristically blank. She hadn’t decided yet how she wanted to play this. Delicious blood-red payment for their brief abandonment, or sweet sensual forgiveness? Once she’d even carried on just as though Spike had never left in the first place. _That_ one had thrown him for a loop and ensured her an especially devoted childe for months thereafter. However, their sweet girl seemed to be tipping the scales in one particular direction…

“Daddy’s home,” Spike agreed, eyes sparkling in anticipation of pain or pleasure or something else entirely.

Buffy took one step away from Drusilla and closer to the bed. She couldn’t believe she’d missed the scent of him before now. His arousal made her thighs go damp and her demon lash at the edges of her mind. The last was both lust and rage. For deep beneath the leather and soap, she could still smell the women he’d been with during his absence. A dozen, perhaps. Nothing unusual, since she and Dru had found themselves other lovers as well. All that mattered was that, in the long run, he came back to them. But the information could be used for a little intimidation…

“Our boy’s been naughty,” Buffy tisked, holding one hand out to Dru.

Twin desire-yellowed gazes met, and an unspoken plan passed between them. “Wicked boy,” Drusilla hissed, showing a hint of fang. “Thinks he can play with _aaall_ the birdies and not get his fingers pecked…”

“Had a right fun time of it, too.” Spike tilted his head to one side unapologetically. He knew he was asking for trouble, but these two knew how to make it hurt better than anyone else alive or undead.

Buffy knew that should be her cue to make some witty and vaguely menacing remark. But she found her attention riveted to his hardness. Her mouth felt suddenly dry as the first drops of precum escaped the tip of his cock, and she licked her lips. Her demon growled its desire to taste him, to have blood and sex and sire all in one. A shutter ran through her body and, eyes still fixed on her goal, she rested one knee on the mattress.

Drusilla mirrored her action on the either side of Spike, giving him a wicked enigmatic smile that made him gulp. He did nothing but fold his arms behind his head nonchalantly, however. Cocky boy needed to be taught a lesson. But not tonight…

Crawling up the bedspread like a feral cat, Buffy caught his right arm in a steely grip, pinning him down. Drusilla mirrored the action on his left side, holding him between them. Buffy’s right hand descended on his thigh, caressing the pale skin there, before she gave her grandsire a wicked look. “I’m hungry.”

“Me, too,” Drusilla giggled.

Buffy’s fingers turned into razor-sharp claws, and Spike let out a hiss of pain when she cut into his sensitive skin. A red line of blood welled up against his white flesh, and Buffy leaned down over his body to savor the sweet flavor of her sire.

Drusilla watched her mate’s face tense up with agony and ecstasy, waiting until the line blurred to nothing before she tipped the balance to the side of pleasure. Best to leave him guessing until the last minute, after all. She leaned in languidly and smiled when a breath caught in his throat. He was bracing himself, but not even he knew for what.

She looked up at him with a toothy grin, candlelight glinting off her fangs, before her face shifted back to its human planes. And, rather than punishing her boy, she rewarded him with a long, slow lick up the length of his erection.

Spike’s head fell back in response, an unbidden moan escaping his lips.

Buffy abandoned the healing cut on his thigh and turned her attention to his cock as well. Her head turned at an opposite angle to Dru’s, so that they could both lick him up and down together, one on each side.

Needy little whimpers escaped Spike’s throat, and he tried desperately to thrust his hips off the mattress. The two vampiresses held him firmly down, however, and he quickly realized that they didn’t have to hurt him to torture him. His hands itched to caress their bodies after being so long separated, but his arms were firmly trapped. His own bloody fault for keeping himself from their bed for so long, he supposed.

Buffy and Drusilla began alternating their licks, one moving down while the other moved up. Drusilla’s tongue found a drop of pleasure dripping down the sensitive head, and she lapped it up, lips encasing him and sucking lightly.

“Fuck, yes!” Spike cried out inarticulately, clawed hands clutched in the sheets since he couldn’t reach anything else to gain purchase.

Buffy, not to be undone, slid her cheek down his shaft until she reached his swollen balls. Her tongue gently guided one into her mouth, rolling its taste across her tongue, before she gave the other the same treatment. When his entire body was trembling from the ecstasy of it, she finally took mercy on him and took both into her mouth.

Drusilla chose that moment to fully engulf his thick cock, throat muscles realizing so that she could take him all the way to the hilt. Her cheeks sucked in tight as she deep-throated him, smiling when she felt the first growl of orgasm rumble through his body.

Buffy felt his balls tighten within her mouth and sucked harder, tongue wrapping around each in quick succession. A momentary gasp, and then his pleasure burst forth into Drusilla’s mouth, a roar escaping his lips.

Buffy pulled back and nuzzled his thigh affectionately as Dru drank him down. Her hands released him, and his limbs went limp beneath her. She felt a momentary pang of regret that _she_ hadn’t been the one to taste him, but she let it pass. Her own needs would be fulfilled shortly enough.

With a final lap at his rapidly rehardening shaft, Drusilla rose up on her knees and purred contentedly. “Mommy had forgotten just how sweet her William tasted,” she purred, body stretching out beside her languid mate’s.

Spike murmured something incoherent, a blissful smile on his face as he nuzzled her hair. “My dark princess…”

“My black knight…”

Buffy propped herself up on one elbow and stretched her body out beside them to watch as Spike found his second wind and tackled Dru to the mattress beneath him. The dark-haired vampiress giggled and keened as overeager hands ripped apart the clothes Buffy had dressed her in early that evening. It wasn’t long before only scattered scraps of fabric covered Dru’s body, and Spike thrust deep within her womb with one hard stroke.

Buffy bit her lip and watched them, fingers trailing down between her aching thighs. God, she wanted him so badly it was nearly painful. The demon within raged at being denied for so long. _Not fair_ , it whispered in the back of her mind. _The only reason he takes her first is because she’s his mate. If he was_ our _mate, we could have him whenever we wanted him. No waiting…_

She’d gotten used to the jealous whispers over the years, however, and had learned to live with them. A little compromise between herself and her demon: She knew only too well that she didn’t have a chance against Dru until she became a Master, but once she did, she would fight – to the death, if need be – for her sire. Dark promises in the back of her mind to soothe her demon.

But that was all a long way off. Right now, she desperately needed her release. Almost mesmerized, she watched Spike thrust in and out of Dru’s body. It wasn’t often that Drusilla gave herself completely over to his lust, but Buffy always found it incredibly erotic when she did. Mirrors couldn’t show Buffy what Spike looked like when he moved inside her, but it must look like this, and she drank in every detail.

The muscles of his ass clenched tight with each powerful thrust, back muscles rippling, arms flexing and unflexing. He stretched up on his toes with each push, as if straining for penetration deeper than was physically possible. Beneath him, Drusilla clutched him tightly to her and gasped in wild abandon as he brought her to climax.

Buffy’s thumb rubbed over her swollen clit frantically, three fingers buried deep within her slick channel, moving in time to his thrusts. Oh, he was so beautiful, so perfect, and she needed him inside her, touching the very center of her being, trapped within her immortal embrace, and… The peak evaded her, even as she sought it.

Drusilla had no difficulty falling over the edge, however. With a shriek like a banshee, her nails dug deep into Spike’s back, leaving deep red furrows in their wake. Marking him as hers forever.

A growl of completion overtook Spike as well, and his seed flooded her womb. 

The combined scent of their sex was suddenly unbearable, and Buffy absolutely _had_ to be a part of it. She rolled Spike off of Dru’s body before he even had time to fully collapse, straddling his waist and yanking her dress off over her head. With only a few gyrations of her hips, he was hard again and looking up at her from under dark, long lashes.

“Missed me?” he teased, that irascible smirk curving his lips.

Buffy’s eyes narrowed. “God, I hate you!” she exclaimed vehemently, impaling herself on his thick cock. She barely managed to prop her hands up against the smooth alabaster of his chest before she collapsed from the pleasure of feeling him inside her once more.

He chuckled at that and thrust his hips up into her, making her moan. “Should prob’ly stop makin’ love to me then,” he countered confidently, hands reaching up to palm her breasts.

Angry hazel eyes snapped open. “Jerk,” she accused. “Arrogant prick.”

“Just turnin’ me on with your sweet-talk, slayer,” he taunted, clutching at her hips now. “I didn’t know better, ‘d think you—”

God, she wanted to kill him and fuck him and, more than anything else, shut him the hell up. Her lips caught his harshly, plundering his mouth, thrusting deep down his throat and claiming him as hers.

He growled in response, clutching her to him as their bodies began grinding together uncontrollably, all gentleness and rhythm forgotten in their desperate need to just be _together_ once again.

Fangs grazed and blood filled the union of their mouths, limbs tangling and clutching, bodies rolling over to find the position that allowed them to press closest together. The curve of his cock let him find the sweet spot within her unerringly, and her inner walls tensed around him, their slickness trapping him deep inside.

It wasn’t long before, amid hisses and growls and the occasional purr, they came together amidst white-hot sparks. Demons suddenly gone lax with fulfillment, they fell back to the bed together, still intimately joined.

Drusilla watched with a yawn. Such lovely childer, fiery and passionate and oh-so-snarky. The two younger vampires bickered and teased constantly as a form of delicious foreplay. Now that the sparks had gone out, she allowed herself to cuddle up against Spike’s free side, resting her head in the curve of his neck.

“Naughty boy shouldn’t leave us for so long,” she tisked.

Hip still slung over Spike’s waist so that he remained inside her, Buffy murmured in agreement. “Don’t leave me tonight,” she pleaded softly. He had always remained buried within her throughout the day those first weeks after she’d been turned and, even though her loss of virginity had long since remained permanent, she still liked to keep him inside her on occasion when she was feeling vulnerable. A sort of guarantee that he would be within her always.

Wrapped up between his mate and childe’s sweaty, naked limbs, Spike couldn’t help but smile in abject bliss. He couldn’t even remember what he’d been thinking that he’d ever left their company. “Never leave my wicked angels,” he promised fervently, planting kisses in both golden and ebony locks. “Love you both more than anythin’…”

No one felt the need to respond to that. It was still several hours before dawn, but weariness at the night’s entertainment sunk into their bones, and they were more than content to doze in each other’s arms.

“Why must the flames of the red witch wake us?” Drusilla mumbled in complaint.

“Mmm,” Spike replied lazily, half-asleep.

Buffy let out a little purr, already unconscious.

A moment’s silence and then, “I can come back later, you know.”

Spike and Buffy started awake at that, and Drusilla merely blinked, trying to reconcile the vision in her head that had forespoken of this event with the fact that it was occurring in the present. Sometimes time was so difficult to decipher the way it ran behind her eyelashes.

Still blinking in confusion and surprise, Buffy finally managed to comprehend the image before her. “Willow?” she asked in disbelief.

The apparition at the foot of the bed, ringed with ghostly black fire, rolled her eyes. “It took me five tries to get this spell right,” the redheaded vampiress complained testily. “The least you three could do is listen to what I have to say.”

Spike grunted and peered up at her from over Buffy’s shoulder. “Neat trick,” he replied with a wicked grin.

Willow licked her lips at the carnal sight the three of them presented. Even more so because she’d soon be able to join them once more…

“I’m calling,” she couldn’t help but giggle at that description of her magical communiqué, “to invite you back home to the Hellmouth. We’ve missed our mommy and daddy horribly.” She affected a cute little girl pout that looked halfway between deranged and wicked. “And our sister, Buffy, too, of course.”

“Of course…” Spike’s scarred eyebrow rose. “Any particular reason you think—?” he began.

Drusilla cut him off. “Order’s going to hand over the gaping jaws of hell to our sweet pixies,” she whispered in his ear, loudly enough that everyone could hear her.

Willow pouted at that. “Ruin my surprise, why don’t you.”

“They’re giving _you_ the Hellmouth?” Buffy blurted out in disbelief. “Why?”

Willow’s eyes narrowed, letting Buffy know only too well that whatever competition had been between them when they’d first been turned was still very alive. “ _Some_ of us actually bothered to study the Order’s books. Dark, dirty spells, mired in the blackest magic…” Her eyes faded to pitch-black as she said it, a look of almost orgasmic bliss on her face.

“But you still wouldn’t mind havin’ a bit of muscle to show the natives you can cut it as the big cheese?” Spike guessed astutely.

Willow blinked at him with wide-eyed innocence. “We thought you’d want to celebrate all this _wonderful_ dark power with us,” she insisted.

Spike’s eyebrow rose skeptically.

Buffy glared.

Drusilla sighed and nuzzled Spike’s throat pointedly.

“Right then,” he agreed, giving in to Dru’s subtle request. “We’ll make our way back to the States.”

Willow giggled and clapped with joy. “We’ll have a dozen pretty young girls for you to drink when you get here,” she insisted excitedly. “Red rivers of blood.”

“Mommy will dream about them,” Drusilla promised, lying her head back down against Spike’s chest and closing her eyes.

Still wise enough to realize that Drusilla always got the final word, the apparition of Willow vanished then, without so much of a goodbye. It wasn’t necessary, now that she’d gotten what she wanted.

“Thought we were avoidin’ the Hellmouth?” Spike inquired curiously, settling back down himself.

“All the stars lead us back to the baking sun,” Drusilla commented casually.

Buffy shivered at that. The idea of returning back to her home was less than appealing. Bad memories and power struggles she’d long left behind. Not to mention the fact that her years both as a slayer and as a fledgling had led her to see Sunnydale as some source of imminent doom. She clutched Spike tighter against her, hoping to bury her fears in her lover’s embrace.

Unfortunately, Dru picked that same moment to shift against him.

“Oi!” he complained, fidgeting. “Whose elbow just jabbed me?” Tangled limbs quickly readjusted until he was comfortable again.

“Poor, poor pretty thing caught in the middle,” Drusilla giggled, unaware of the fact that she’d used those same words only an hour before to prophesize death.

Spike kissed her gently on the forehead and drifted back off to sleep.

Buffy, wide awake with fear now, couldn’t help but look down upon the beautiful body of her sire and wish they weren’t headed back into the perilous pits of hell once more…


	2. Chapter 2

“Mommy!”

No sooner had the large wooden shipping crate been opened (complete with instructions that the cargo within was extremely photosensitive) than Willow leapt into the box along with the three of them, wrapping herself around Drusilla.

Buffy groaned as the confined space suddenly became tighter. The ten-hour flight had been downright agony. She was starting to think that maybe Dru had been the wise one in asking to be sedated throughout the trip.

Shakily, Spike rose beside her. The two of them clutched at each other’s hands and managed to stand together on wobbly feet. They exchanged a little grin that felt obligatory for two vampires who had just beaten the system and found a failsafe way to cross the dangerous oceans.

Meanwhile, Drusilla was finally stirring at Willow’s constant prodding. Thick black lashes blinked and gave way to even blacker eyes. A wicked smile curved her features, and she reached up with one shaky hand to stroke the crimson locks that curtained her face.

“My pretty, fiery pixie,” she cooed, catching Willow’s hair and using it to pull the younger vampiress in for a long, sensual kiss.

“We prepared a wonderful little tea-party all for mommy.” Willow giggled when she was finally able to pull away. “Sweet young throats never before been tasted.” She got up off of her surrogate sire and offered her a hand up. When Drusilla’s knees shook, Willow simply scooped the elder vampiress up her arms and carried her free of the crate.

Confident that Dru was taken care of, Spike turned his attention back to himself. He and Buffy were still clutching each other’s forearms, hanging on for balance. An unspoken agreement passed between them, and carefully they each took a step out of the crate. Buffy had to catch herself on the wooden edge once, but they managed just fine. Already the stolen blood was coursing through their bodies once more, taking the edge off of their frailty, if not their weariness.

They were met by a smiling Cordelia, who offered a helping hand, but was refused. She knew better than to take offense, however; after all, the bleached-blond pair was just as stubborn and pigheaded as she was. “About time you actually paid us a visit,” she complained good-naturedly. “I see your fashion sense hasn’t improved much.” She ran one hand casually through Spike’s platinum locks.

“I see your manners haven’t improved, either,” Buffy shot back.

“Hey!” The exclamation came from the third vampire that had come to greet them. He’d been hovering in the shadows until now, but stepped forward at the insult to his sire.

Cordelia rolled her eyes. “It’s all right, Xander. There’s nothing Buffy can say to me that I can’t beat.”

Buffy sputtered indignantly at that. “Like you—”

“Luv,” Spike cut her off with a quick kiss to the lips.

Buffy’s knees felt suddenly shaky again, but this time it had nothing to do with being nailed up inside a wooden crate. “Mmm?” she murmured contentedly.

“How ‘bout we put off the cat-fight ‘til later? ‘m feelin’ a mite peckish.”

Buffy glared at him. “Cat-fight? You mean like all that girly flailing you did when you fell flat on your ass in that rottweiler’s yard?” she retorted evilly.

His eyes narrowed. “Seem to recall that was entirely ‘cause _someone_ let our prey kick ‘er right off.”

“ _You_ were the one who told me not to knock her out!” Buffy exclaimed indignantly, leaning in so that her face was inches from his. On some sort of mutual subconscious signal, the two of them had begun to walk to the door through which Willow and Dru had exited.

Spike’s nostrils flared, and his shoulder brushed hers pointedly. “Just _suggested_ you lay off all that slayer kung fu crap on the unsuspectin’ human populace. ‘S no fun—”

“‘Slayer kung fu crap’?” Buffy repeated, outraged. She shoved her way past Spike and went through the door ahead of him.

Stalking after her, he caught her around the waist and pulled her body up against him. A giggle, and all that passion abruptly switched directions.

Cordy watched them go with a roll of her eyes. “I see nothing’s changed,” she sighed. A shake of her head and she followed after to join the festivities.

Xander continued to hang back for a few seconds, still pondering the newest arrivals. He’d been too young to really remember Spike and Dru, and his memories of Buffy were largely from their human days. But he remembered those only too well. The rejection, frustration, heartbreak…

His brow furrowed over angry dark eyes as he stared pointedly at the place the blonde former-slayer had so recently vacated. And then, decision made and a small smile creeping upon his lips, he went to join the rest of his family.

* * *

The delicious smell of fear perfumed the air, and Drusilla groaned in ecstasy as she took the last pull of blood from the young girl before her. There was a delightful rush of power through the room as the child’s life came to an end, and Drusilla lay back lazily on the bed and let the dark emotions wash over her.

Buffy finally had her fill of the young man she’d been given – the boyfriend of the babysitter, she gathered – and curled up next to where Spike had just finished off the babysitter herself. He shoved the corpse off the mattress to better accommodate her, and she snuggled against his shoulder, eyelids drooping with satisfied lusts.

Their three victims painted a pretty picture for her to contemplate in her lazy haze. Teenage girl caught babysitting a squawking brat; boyfriend sneaks over; the three of them go out to the park to keep the kid occupied while the babysitter and her boyfriend have some alone time; darkness falls… And death. It was a situation she’d intervened in all too often in her human days. How relaxing it was not to have to worry about every idiot caught out alone at night anymore…

Her own meal for the evening still had a bit of life left in him. She watched curiously as Xander stepped forward from the shadows and knelt before the body. He gave her an inquiring look, and she acquiesced. Watched his demon emerge and his fangs sink into the young man’s throat, taking the last few gulps of blood.

The young dark-haired vampire hadn’t uttered more than a few words since they’d arrived, and Buffy found it unusual. The Xander she remembered had always been clowning around, but he seemed subdued now, like he was hidden deep inside his own mind…

“How long have our pretty pixies been mated?” Drusilla’s languid voice sounded through the bedroom. 

The Sunnydale clan had long abandoned the warehouse the Anointed One had first used as his lair and had taken up residence in an old Victorian mansion just outside the city limits. A quiet, secluded spot to hide all their crimes. But the biggest plus of this new hideout was the bedroom. It had once been a suite of sorts, Buffy was convinced, and the walls were all lined with elegantly carved wooden panels. The only furniture was the huge bed that occupied the center of the room. It was one of those round beds, larger than emperor-sized and more than big enough to fit all six of them comfortably, covered with green silk sheets and piled high with pillows. Willow and Cordelia’s bed, apparently…

“Nearly thirty years now,” Willow answered proudly, giving Cordelia a possessive nip on the throat. “Just as soon as we were strong enough…”

Cordelia smiled at that and slipped one hand down Willow’s pants, pulling the redhead into her lap. “Brag much?”

Willow grinned. “Naughty girl,” she purred approvingly.

Xander’s eyes darkened. His gaze flickered downward for a second before alighting on Buffy. She’d noticed his reaction and was watching him with a slight frown on her face. She was as beautiful as he’d remembered her. Unfortunately, she was still wrapped loosely in Spike’s embrace. That complicated things.

With calculating slowness, Xander uncurled from his latest feed and climbed up onto the bed, moving towards Buffy and Spike on hands and knees, his movements too sleek and predatory to ever be termed ‘crawling’.

Drusilla’s attention turned from watching the two mated vampiresses when she saw Xander begin his attack. The dark-haired boy was as pretty and lean as she’d always remembered him, and the surety in his movements had a panther-like beauty. His apparent goal was most curious, however…

Buffy had been momentarily distracted from Xander’s peculiar behavior by Spike’s wicked and talented tongue. She didn’t even sense the younger vampire had moved until he was practically nose-to-nose with them.

Spike broke away from Buffy’s mouth in surprise. He hadn’t felt much of anything from the younger male before now, but suddenly Xander was exuding a dangerous power. Spike could feel the scent of it on the back of his throat like an itch, a challenge he couldn’t refuse.

Xander gave Buffy a sly grin. “Why waste your time on a vampire who already has a mate?” He gestured over his shoulder at Dru. “Don’t you think you deserve a lover who can give you his _full_ ,” his eyes raked up and down Buffy’s body, “attention?”

Buffy’s eyes narrowed at that, and a low growl started deep in her throat. Only Spike’s hand on her shoulder kept her from lunging in attack.

“My girl wants the best,” Spike retorted cockily, giving Xander the once-over and pretending to find him lacking.

Xander snarled at that, and his demon erupted through his body at the insult. Before he even had a chance to remind himself that attacking Spike was most certainly _not_ part of his plan, he’d leapt at the elder vampire, fangs snapping.

With a yelp of startled surprise, Buffy scrambled away from the two tussling males. She backed up until she ended up sitting beside the other three vampiresses. They all exchanged surprised looks and turned their attention back to the fight.

Spike caught Xander by the neck, holding back the razor-sharp fangs from his throat. His leg shot out, knocking out Xander’s supporting leg and throwing the younger vampire off-balance.

The two of them rolled over, and Spike managed to flip Xander easily, placing his knee squarely in the small of the dark-haired vampire’s back. His own game face emerged, and he sunk his fangs into the back of Xander’s shoulder in a violent gesture. Over quick, dirty, and easy. Not much of a challenge at all, really.

Still in demon face, Xander snarled and tried to knock Spike off. It was an impossible battle, however. An extra century of life had given the peroxide blond strength Xander couldn’t even imagine yet.

And, with the surety of his defeat, the demon receded and Xander suddenly remembered that challenging Spike was exactly the opposite of what he wanted to do. His cursed inwardly at his temper and lack of control.

Spike removed his fangs as the young vamp stilled beneath him. “Not that that wasn’t a bitta fun…” he began.

Xander shrugged apologetically, thoroughly chastised. “I’ve got a quick temper,” he provided.

The four vampiresses leaned back almost in unison with a disappointed sigh.

“Could’ve been more than a ‘bit’ of fun,” Cordelia grumbled.

“Still could be…” Drusilla sing-songed. Always the mistress of emotions, changing the mood in the room from tense to light-hearted in a non-existent heartbeat.

The two men looked up and belatedly realized they had an audience. They exchanged a puzzled look before they sensed the change as well and their faces lit up with wicked leers.

Spike leaned back pointedly over Xander and licked a long, sensual line over the younger vampire’s shoulder and up the back of his neck, eyes fixed on the four vampiresses all along. He moved his knee off of Xander’s back, and the brunet rose slowly, gave the watching women a pointed look, and kissed Spike right on the lips.

Excited, lustful squeals came from the audience as Spike wrapped his arms roughly around Xander’s waist and tackled him back onto the mattress once more.

“That’s more like it…” Buffy breathed, eyes wide and fleshly-stolen blood pulsing a carnal rhythm throughout her veins.

“More skin…” Drusilla encouraged the two men in agreement. The mood shifted again, teasing to white-hot lust…

It was a request Spike and Xander were more than eager to comply with. Xander’s hands pushed down the thick black leather of Spike’s duster before venturing to the buttons of his shirt, exposing smooth pale muscles to his hungry gaze. He reached up with his tongue to flick at one flat, dusty nipple, while Spike fully shucked off his clothing. It had been a long time since Xander had willingly had sex with another male, and his demon was both raging and purring at the notion. Uncontrollable desires that quickly overwhelmed him.

Spike pulled back, eyes flashing yellow with excitement and peeled Xander out of the tight t-shirt and jeans he was wearing. The boy rolled onto his stomach beneath him, seemingly completely subservient now. It was unpredictable behavior, but Spike’s own demon was whispering its desires now, and he banished such thoughts to the back of his mind.

His lips quickly found the spot on Xander’s shoulder he’d bitten earlier, and he lapped at the blood there as he tested Xander’s opening. Found it well-used and eager to give way at his fingers’ prodding. Another oddity, since Xander should’ve been at the age now that he could fight off most attackers.

Buffy, Willow, and Cordelia each let out lustful sighs at the sight of pale, sweaty, tangled male limbs. Spike and Xander were both fully erect now, and Spike was rubbing his cock gently against the perfect curve of Xander’s ass.

Drusilla, already anticipating the orgy to come, slipped the straps of her dress off her shoulders and rose from the bed, leaving the dark silk to fall to the floor in a graceful pool about her feet. Completely nude and swaying gently to the music in her own mind, she popped open the trunk she’d brought from England, found what she needed and approached the pair on the bed.

Spike gasped as her hands slipped around his waist from behind. She grasped his erection with long, pale fingers and rubbed the lube into him that she’d acquired. He purred in pleasure as he mate coated his member and whimpered when she released him.

“Make love to him,” Dru whispered into his ear, nibbling at the lobe.

Xander, who had gone suddenly still when he suddenly realized he was at the mercy of two powerful vampires he didn’t really know, relaxed again and practically moaned in anticipation.

Spike growled in response and, with a need so immediate the watching vampiresses barely saw it, sheathed himself up to the hilt in Xander’s ass. There was a hiss of pain/pleasure from Xander, a roar of triumph from Spike, and heady moans from the women.

Pale female limbs crawled toward the coupling male pair. Clothes fell to the bed and were kicked aside as Spike began thrusting deep within Xander and Xander’s whimpers turned to pure ecstatic cries.

Dru was boldest, as usual, and quickly found that she couldn’t bear to watch the two beautiful boys and not touch them. She’d brought out the strap-on, but set it aside for the moment. There was plenty of time for those games later, and right now she just wanted to touch her Spike. Her breasts pressed flat against the flexing muscles in his back, and her sex dampened the curve of his ass as she encircled him with her naked body, guiding him in and out of Xander with each push.

Xander’s lust-yellowed eyes opened with lazy contentment to find his sire before him, dark hair spilling over her shoulders to hide her bare breasts from his hungry eyes. Cordelia leaned in and met his lips with a kiss. Their tongues tangled and danced, and Xander purred with lust as the heady taste of sire on his lips. He couldn’t control himself from vamping out any longer, and his fangs tore at Cordy’s lips, bringing the aroma of rich blood into the bedroom.

The scent further excited everyone and, before Buffy even registered what was happening, Willow had caught her up in a passionate kiss. She kissed back eagerly, body desperate for some of the sex that was all around her. Her fingers tangled in crimson hair, and she let Willow push her back onto the silk sheets.

Willow’s hand slithered its way determinedly between Buffy’s thighs, found her clit, and twisted it roughly. Buffy cried out in response and fell back limply beneath the redhead. She’d never actually had sex with Willow before and was starting to wonder why she’d put it off for so long.

Willow’s own lips curved in satisfaction. _Finally have her at my mercy. After all these years…_

In the meantime, Cordelia had slid her hands down the front of Xander’s body. Her fingers circled his straining cock and pulled. The sensation, combined with Spike pounding into him from behind, brought Xander off with a gasp of completion.

Spike came at that, as well, releasing his pleasure into Xander’s body with a roar. The two men fell down to the bed together, pinning Cordelia beneath them. Drusilla came to rest on top of them, purring at the feel of naked, satiated limbs as they caressed her body. She enjoyed the sensation for a moment before pulling Spike out of the tangled mass of limbs and flipping him over onto his back.

He looked up at her with languid eyes, watched her dark hair curtain his thighs as she leaned in to suck him hard once more. Wet lips and tongue encircled him, cleaning him off, and he was moaning again in ecstasy within seconds.

Abandoned by the elder pair, Xander and Cordelia exchanged a wicked grin. Cordelia rubbed erotically against her childe, until he couldn’t take it anymore and pinned her down, pushing his way between her thighs and into her womb. “Sire…” he gasped reverently before he began moving frantically within her.

“There’s my Xander,” Cordelia sighed, lying back and enjoying herself, hands rediscovering the smooth planes of his back.

Willow looked up at Cordelia’s satisfied moans from where Xander was filling her. For a second, her eyes narrowed with calculating anger. Then Buffy squirmed beneath her, so near to completion, and Willow’s fingers reached deep inside, finishing the former slayer off before she left to tend to the dark-haired pair.

Buffy sighed in contentment and then huffed with annoyance when she was abandoned. She propped herself up on shaky elbows to observe the rest of the bed. Willow had just managed to very sneakily insinuate herself between Xander and Cordelia. Her head was now buried between Cordelia’s thighs, while Xander filled her from behind.

Spike and Dru were on the opposite side of the mattress. Dru had Spike pinned beneath her and was riding him with such agonizing slowness that both of them were whimpering at the intensity of it. Drusilla’s dark eyes met Buffy’s for an instant, and Buffy saw the invitation in them only too clearly.

She crawled over to her family, earning a smile from Spike when he looked up to see her face hovering above him. She bent down to steal a quick kiss from his lips and found herself pulled in deeper, her mouth slanting against his upside-down one, tongues stroking each other hungrily.

Drusilla was the one who finally broke their kiss, pulling Buffy up to her own lips. This kiss was quick and chaste and left Buffy almost as lost as Spike’s had.

“Join us, pet,” Spike encouraged, reaching up over his head to grab her hip and pulling her closer.

She gratefully straddled his face, humming in delight when his talented tongue parted her folds and plunged inside of her. Drusilla wrapped her arms around Buffy’s body, helping them to move in tandem as they both rode him.

Buffy’s hands found Dru’s hardened nipples and flicked them roughly, causing the elder vampiress to moan in pleasure. Dru’s own hands returned the favor, palming the weight of Buffy’s breasts and kneading them.

Spike’s lips found Buffy’s clit, and he nibbled and sucked gently. His final pull was in perfect time with Willow’s cry of release from across the bed. The gasps from the other vampire family sent an erotic shiver up Buffy’s spine, and she wanted nothing more to finish it right then.

Her hand slipped between the union of Spike and Dru’s bodies and found Dru’s clit. She twisted and caressed it in perfect counterpoint to Spike’s thrusts. Six rough pulls and Drusilla screamed out her ecstasy, eyes yellowing and fangs flashing as she clung to Buffy in her climax.

Spike had gone still beneath them both when Dru came, shuddering as her muscles squeezed his cock like a vise, exploding up into her womb. Buffy whimpered at the sudden loss of stimulation to her sensitive flesh, but managed to hold on long enough for Dru to recover herself.

The dark-haired vampiress gave Buffy a wicked wink and climbed off of Spike’s pale, beautiful body. “He’s all yours,” she giggled, crawling away to join the other _ménage à trois_.

Buffy leaned forward over his body and licked him back to fullness once more. Oh yes, she definitely loved that vampire stamina…

He pulled at her elbow pointedly, and she rose up so that she could look down into his face. A blissful, contented smile curved his lips. “Turn around so I can see to you properly,” he requested.

Buffy didn’t have to be asked twice. She fell into his arms and wrapped herself around him, guiding his cock home once more. They rolled onto their sides so that they could touch each other better and began moving slowly to a rhythm as old as time…

“So beautiful to watch together, aren’t they?” Drusilla cooed. She found Willow’s sweet spot with the end of the strap-on and ground against it roughly.

Willow gasped and lurched forward but managed to stay on her knees beneath the other vampiress. “Beautiful…” she whispered in agreement, watching Buffy and Spike make love.

“Not just my childer,” Drusilla whispered pointedly.

Willow tried not to think about that. She could hear Xander and Cordelia’s sex behind her. She didn’t often let the two of them spend much time on their own together, but not even she could pass up this chance to have her mommy all to herself.

Blocking out all else but the feel of the strap-on within her, she pushed back hard, drowning herself in pleasure.

Drusilla merely smiled at the wonderful sound of sex all around them and returned to her own pleasure as well.

Behind them, Xander thrust one final time in Cordy, a whispered “I love you” escaping from his lips. She smiled and held him close, keeping him within her as she came. Satisfied and relaxed, they dozed off in each other’s arms.

They were followed only seconds later by Buffy and Spike, who also curled up together in lazy contentment, pale limbs wound so tightly it was difficult to tell where one ended and the other began.

“So beautiful…” Drusilla’s whisper echoed through the room. She held a keening Willow up against her as pleasure washed over the redhead. “Just one big happy family…”

Willow purred in agreement, slipping free of Drusilla and turning around to give the vampiress an eager kiss. She quickly caught sight of Xander sleeping with _her_ Cordelia and reluctantly left Drusilla to her own family.

Drusilla watched her go, watched her elbow Xander out of the way so that she could once again slip between her mate and her mate’s childe. A tisk escaped Dru’s lips, and she crawled over to Spike, wrapping herself around the curve of his back, contented to just sleep for the moment.

It wasn’t to be, however.

Dru’s eyelashes half-opened, watching secretly as Xander left Willow and Cordelia and made his way towards the three of them. It was unlikely that his body still _needed_ sex after the events of that evening, but they could all have gone on much longer had the situation required it.

Buffy murmured slightly when Xander rolled her over, pulling her free of Spike’s embrace, but didn’t object when he entered her. It was an orgy, after all.

And Drusilla crawled over to them to make sure it stayed that way. Best not to let the wild young boy get foolish ideas into his head… 

Xander gasped in surprise when Dru took him from behind. It had obviously never occurred to him that a woman could penetrate a man. His teeth clenched at the comparative harshness of the strap-on, but he continued to move within Buffy.

Buffy almost felt sorry for Xander in that moment. Drusilla at her wickedest took quite a deal of preparation and practice; Xander had never had sex with her before and didn’t know what to expect. But then Xander was moaning in pleasure, and she and Dru were, too. Drusilla’s hand reached around Xander’s body to stroke Buffy’s sensitive brow ridges erotically.

But all three of them were tired and finished quickly, amidst gasps and growls and even a purr from Xander.

Buffy settled in – hopefully to actually sleep this time – but was surprised when Xander was pulled off of her. Mirroring Willow’s actions from not long ago, Drusilla situated herself between Buffy and Xander, encouraging the blonde to return to Spike’s embrace.

And, curled up between her sire and grandsire, Buffy fell into a blissful sleep, unaware of the trouble swirling around her. It wouldn’t be until tomorrow that that perpetual sense of dread that surrounded the Hellmouth itched down her spine. One happy family, indeed…


	3. Chapter 3

Buffy woke that evening with a yawn, snuggled against Spike’s side, frowned when she smelled Drusilla’s scent on him as well, and asked herself the same question she did every morning: “Am I strong enough to take him from her yet?”

The inevitable ‘no’ came back to her, and she didn’t know whether to be pleased or disappointed. After all, as much as it surprised her, she’d come to realize that she didn’t really hate Dru. In fact, the elder vampiress had gone out of her way to make Buffy feel at home in their little family. Even last night – for reasons as of yet unfathomable to Buffy – Dru had taken it upon herself to defend her grandchilde from whatever Xander’s strange motives happened to be.

So Buffy had pretty much decided that she wouldn’t kill Dru. She wasn’t even sure she wanted Dru dead; she just wanted Spike for herself. She just had to beat Drusilla fair and square, break the mating bond with Spike, and then take him for her own mate. She didn’t even think she’d object if Dru stayed around afterwards…although Drusilla inevitably would object to being cast out.

But, whatever the outcome, Buffy had no doubt that it would be the end to the happy little status quo that their family maintained. Which was why she wasn’t too disappointed that she got to enjoy these moments for just a while longer.

With a groan, she got up and stretched. Already her mind felt weary from weighing possible outcomes of the inevitable confrontation. It was starting to give her a headache…

 _Oh yeah. This is why I hate the Hellmouth. Everything turns into a psychotic power play within minutes…_

Shaking the thought off, she moved Spike’s arm from around her waist and got up off of the huge mattress that had been the site of the sexcapades last night. Spike let out a little mumble of protest when she left his side, but then just curled up happily against Dru instead. Apparently, they’d worn out their boy well.

It only took a few seconds for Buffy to give up on trying to find her clothes of last night. The room was in complete disarray. Fortunately, the trunks the three of them had brought to America were still intact. Buffy found a short black dress quickly and slipped it on.

Still no motion from the bed.

It surprised her to note that Willow and Xander were already gone for the evening. A cold little shiver that Willow had been up and about while Buffy was sleeping and helpless. And renewed puzzlement at what exactly had seemed so off about Xander last night. Curious, too, that he hadn’t been as completely drained (metaphorically, of course) as Spike had been. After all, there had been very few penises around last night, and Buffy would’ve figured they’d be in high demand.

The grumbling in her stomach put off all such thoughts to later. Just as she was about to vanish into the night to hunt, a hand came to rest on her shoulder from behind, causing her to jump.

 _Reason number 926 to hate the Hellmouth: It makes me as jumpy as if I were the prey…_

“Xander,” she managed to say calmly when she turned to face the furtive intruder.

The edges of his lips curled, and something like excitement and anger flashed in the back of his dark eyes. “Going hunting?”

She nodded hesitantly.

“Mind if I tag along? I’m starving.”

Buffy couldn’t really think of a good reason to say no. Or, no reason that she could put words to. A vaguely uncomfortable feeling wasn’t really good enough, not if she wanted to avoid picking a fight with Xander. And, given the constant rage that seemed to bubble beneath the surface, Buffy figured it would probably be best just not to piss him off.

She nodded her consent, and the two of them slipped into the shadows.

It wasn’t long before they came upon a college student huddled up in his own jacket and waiting nervously at the bus stop. Buffy distracted him; Xander yanked him into the bushes from behind, and they fed. 

Amiable enough…if not for the dark whispers in Xander’s eyes.

“You’re full already?” Xander demanded when she turned to head home.

Buffy’s back stiffened with the uncomfortable and awkward situation. “Spike should be up by now.”

Xander circled her slowly, looking vaguely menacing but not fully challenging her. For the moment, at least. “He knows you’re among friends. No reason to run back to daddy yet. We’ve still got the whole night ahead of us.” There was a certain venom to the way he said ‘daddy’ that made Buffy nervous.

“Plenty of ways to play back home, too,” she countered pointedly, crossing her arms over her chest to let him know he wasn’t frightening her. And he wasn’t, not really. She could feel that, despite the closeness of their ages, his power wasn’t half of hers. She could take him in a fight, no problem. So she wasn’t frightened. More… _unsettled_ by his strange behavior. “I thought you’d want to get back to your sire as well,” she added diplomatically.

The wrong thing to say, apparently.

Xander’s eyes flashed yellow with rage. “What do you mean by _that_?” he demanded in a low growl.

Buffy raised one impertinent eyebrow, still standing calmly, unconcerned by his ire. “Temper much?” she demanded. “Or, how about, overreact much? Seems like we both get something out of going back home is all.”

Xander calmed at that and shook his head. “Sorry about that,” he apologized, suddenly conciliatory. 

He managed a wry laugh, one so eerily similar to the light-hearted boy she’d once known that it sent shivers down her spine. He was definitely anything but light-hearted now. Something had changed him, and Buffy was betting on the pit of hell that caressed them from beneath. 

Buffy was becoming increasingly grateful that Spike and Dru had blown town after Dru’s cure. She hadn’t noticed anything at the time – largely because she’d only ever been a vampire in Sunnydale – but the Hellmouth’s weight agitated the demon within, made it harder to control.

“I just don’t feel like heading back yet,” Xander said, seemingly normal now. “How ‘bout we bring something back for the others?”

“Sure,” Buffy accepted the apology with a shrug. After all, the night whispered to her demon, too. A dark power seemed to flow through her body, and all she wanted to do was run through the black of night, free and wild.

A smile lit up Xander’s face that was almost friendly. “Race ya,” he teased as the scent of human fear hit the night air. He was off with a dash.

Buffy laughed, suddenly relaxed again. This was more the Xander she remembered. Safe, friendly Xander. Always joking and laughing. She took off after him.

Their target happened to be a married couple who were standing outside their broken-down vehicle and yelling at each other. Ah, the joys of marriage. Out-of-towners, too, so they probably wouldn’t be familiar with Sunnydale’s vamp situation.

Despite Xander’s head start, Buffy quickly surpassed him and circled around the pair from behind, blending into the shadows as if she were nothing but a shade herself. Only Xander’s demonic eyes spotted her, and she was more than sure that she was the only one who saw him as well.

She gave a nod and dove in for the kill, setting her sights on the man of the pair. Xander was only a second behind her after the woman. Fangs bared, they descended…

…And both halted simultaneously.

Almost as if on cue, the quarreling pair pulled crosses from their jacket pockets, baring them before the vampires.

Xander hissed and covered his eyes, tripping back over his own feet as he scrambled away from them. “Demon hunters!” he called out to Buffy in alarm.

Buffy winced at the sight of the cross before her and took a step back. The cross felt like a burning brand in the back of her mind, fire against the backs of her eyes that made thinking nearly impossible. Little white flashes went off around her peripheral vision like a nightmare migraine from hell. She kept her cool, however, and began circling towards Xander. They could get out of this together.

The sound behind her was barely noticeable above the pain that fogged her mind. A snap of a twig. Another human behind her, heart racing with fear and anticipation. An ambush.

“Run!” she screamed to Xander, diving for the ground in a neat somersault just as the crossbow bolt struck the tree just where her heart had been.

She didn’t bother to look back to see if Xander had made it. Running through the trees at a breakneck pace, she nearly slammed into the wall before her. Only one graceful leap at the last second landed her on the top of the stone wall.

She did pause for a moment, then, to listen for signs of pursuit. Nothing coming her way, although she could hear the humans off in the distance arguing about how to improve their ambush strategy. Apparently the Hellmouth bred not only psychotic vampires, but foolishly brave humans with a death wish as well.

Buffy breathed an unnecessary sigh of relief and stretched her senses out to find Xander. She’d just about given him up for dust and vanished over the wall into the cemetery behind her, when a dark, silent shape moved through the bushes below her.

“Xander!” Buffy whispered in relief as the summer winds brought his frightened scent to her.

He looked up in relief. “That was too close.” He leapt up beside her, and they fled together into the cemetery.

She nodded. “You have a lot of problems with demon hunters?” she inquired. She, personally, hadn’t dealt with many before. They tended to work around large, stable clans. She, Spike, and Dru had been on the road most of the time and therefore impossible to track by the more foolhardy elements of the human population.

Xander sighed. “Expect a couple of attacks a week,” he provided wearily. Just an every night occurrence for him.

“No, really,” Buffy insisted in disbelief. No change in Xander’s solemn expression. “Jeez,” she exclaimed, “I can see why Willow was so hot to have Spike back in town.”

“That’s Willow for you,” Xander agreed, his voice cold. “Always the clever one. Plotting around behind everyone’s backs…”

“Careful who you say that to,” Buffy advised. “She’s got ears everywhere.”

Xander studied her carefully. “You don’t like Willow any more than I do,” he shot back. “That _witch_ is good at making enemies.”

The anger in the word ‘witch’ put Buffy off. Willow wasn’t her favorite vampire, to be sure, but she’d never felt this much resentment for the redhead. Maybe she would’ve if she’d been living in Sunnydale all these years…

“You can’t know what it’s like,” Xander was ranting in frustration now. “She’s completely out of her mind! And she has so much power…” He shuddered, even though he was unable to feel the bite in the night air. This chill was deeper than any shift of the weather, in any case. “She made Cordy be her mate,” he stated matter-of-factly. “I know it. Cordy won’t oppose her. No one will. They’re all too frightened.”

Buffy took in this all with some curiosity. A few hours back in Willow’s presence had told her that the vampiress’ domineering ways hadn’t abated in the slightest. It was strange – and dangerous – to hear these words from a vampire under her thumb, however. Even more perplexing that Xander was saying them to a virtual stranger…

“Life’s a bitch,” Buffy went for nonchalance. “So is Willow. I guess you learn to live with it.” Xander could try to kill Willow, of course, but Buffy was sure even Xander could sense that he wasn’t strong enough to win.

“That, or someone gets rid of her,” Xander echoed Buffy’s thoughts.

Buffy’s eyes narrowed suspiciously at that. There was a hopeful gleam in his eyes that made her nervous. “Why are you telling me all this?” she demanded warily. “For all you know, I’ll blab it back to Willow, and you’ll get the punishment of an unlifetime.”

He studied her quietly for a minute, his entirely body gone eerily still. There was a cold calculation in his eyes that unnerved her. “Our situations aren’t that different,” he finally answered.

“Oh?” Buffy took a step closer and looked right into his eyes, openly challenging him to back that statement up.

“You’ve been back less than a day, and already I’ve seen the way you look at Spike. At Dru. At the two of them when they’re together and you’re not invited,” he taunted lightly.

Buffy felt her demon tickling at the back of her neck, begging to be released. She held it in check with half a century’s worth of willpower. “I could say the same thing about you with Cordy and Willow,” she retorted.

Xander’s demon did slip free then, eyes yellowing and face bones shifting. He flashed his fangs but managed to keep from attacking. “Cordy’s only with Willow because she’s not strong enough to break free,” he insisted stubbornly. 

It sounded to Buffy’s ears like the same way the fanatical cling to their delusions. Probably best not to debate the point.

“You have to know Spike would take you as his mate, if Dru dropped out of the picture,” Xander pressed.

Buffy frowned at that. It was true enough. Spike loved her, just as he loved Dru. “If Spike and Dru hadn’t already been mates when I was turned, I don’t think he could’ve chosen between us,” Buffy countered. “Cordy had the choice.”

One clawed hand moved to strike her. She was faster. She caught Xander’s wrist in a brutal grip and used his momentum to send him careening to the ground.

He scrambled up to his knees and snarled. Buffy poised to defend herself once more, and the conviction in her eyes said only too clearly that this time he wouldn’t get off with just a warning. It seemed to sober Xander, and he smiled, demon receding once more.

“I can smell your power,” he informed her, delighted.

Buffy took a careful step back and kept her eyes on him. “Yeah, me, too,” she retorted flippantly. “Big whoop.”

“You could defeat Willow.” Xander said it with certainty; Buffy was less sure. If it ever did come down to that, it’d be a close battle.

“Maybe,” she conceded. “Although I hate to break it to you, but I’m skipping town with Spike and Dru once Willow takes the Hellmouth.”

“If Willow dies—” he began.

“Unlikely,” Buffy cut him off. “I’m not even sure I can beat her. Not to mention the fact that this is none of my business. Hell, if you want someone to off Wills for you so badly, why not ask Spike or Dru? It’d be a piece of cake for them.”

“I can’t offer either of them anything they want,” Xander countered.

Buffy frowned at that. “And you can offer me…what? The Hellmouth? I don’t want it. Frankly, I want to be away from here as fast as possible.”

“My eternal gratitude?” Xander teased, a seductive smile curving his lips. He circled Buffy again, still predatory but this time in a blatantly sexual way. A shiver of anticipation ran down her spine when he brushed his hard body against her.

“I’m strong enough to make you play with me any time I want,” Buffy countered. Not that she particularly wanted to force Xander; it was just a simple statement of fact.

And it was taken as such, rather than as a threat. He backed off to sit back on one of the tombstones. How ironic would Father Michael Connelly have found it that two vampires were debating sex and death right over his final resting-place?

“Willow wants you,” Xander informed Buffy. “She’s hoping to use this time to worm you under her thumb, turn you into a nice little minion like all the rest of us.”

That didn’t surprise Buffy, but it still made her skin crawl. “Spike won’t let her. Hell, neither will Dru. She’s very big on family.”

“But she considers Willow family, too,” Xander pointed out. “And she has to know that you’re going to make trouble for her sooner or later. You’re what? Less than fifty? And already you feel like a Master.”

Buffy bit her lip at that. The day of their final confrontation was close; she could feel it. Even more so now that she was back on the Hellmouth. What on earth did it do, make vampires stronger or crazier? Perhaps a bit of both…

“Dru and I are…friends.” The word sounded awkward on her lips, given her certain intention to challenge the vampiress someday.

“Really?” Xander countered. “Because I’ve never heard you call her anything but ‘grandsire’.” 

The implications hung clearly between them. It would have been the greatest sign of affection Buffy could show her elder if she were to call her ‘sire’ as she did with Spike. It would also be a subtle promise that Buffy accepted that Spike and Dru were mates. For that very reason, she was careful never to have used the term…

Xander sensed that he’s struck a nerve and moved in for the kill. “Help me,” he whispered right in her ear, “and I’ll help you. Together we can take out both Willow and Drusilla. You’ll have your sire, and I’ll have mine.”

 _Yes!_ Her demon was practically screaming in the back of her mind. _You’ve waited for too long, watched them for too long, wanted for too long…_ But Buffy hadn’t been slave to her demon for a long time. “And if we fail?” she retorted.

“We have each other.” Xander’s knuckles stroked the side of her face.

Buffy was startled and somewhat horrified to realize she’d changed into game face without even realizing it. She quickly shifted back, chiding herself inwardly. She was supposed to have better control than that. But the idea of having Spike all to herself was so tantalizing…

“You’re the consolation prize?” she snapped sarcastically instead.

Xander shrugged at that and retreated to his tombstone once more. “You can’t tell me you’re not curious. You’ve seen them together. You _know_ it’s different when two mates fuck.”

Haunting memories of hours spent watching Spike and Dru locked together flashed through her mind. There was a power there, an intensity, that she couldn’t even grasp. Somehow, she knew that she never would understand until she experienced it for herself. And that portion of her mind where her demon and human halves blended in perfect harmony wanted to feel that bliss more than anything else in the world.

“It’s different,” she agreed. “Better.”

Xander nodded. “I just want that with my sire.”

“So do I,” Buffy admitted, feeling somewhat breathless at the thought.

“Do we have a deal, then?” Xander grinned, looking hopeful and eager and very, very young.

Buffy hesitated and bit her lip…

“Mommy wondered where her little chickadees had run off to.” Willow’s seemingly innocent voice put an abrupt halt to their discussion.

“We were so worried,” Drusilla agreed, appearing from the stand of trees beside Willow. “Nasty hunters with their crosses are out tonight.”

Xander nodded, addressing Willow. “We ran into the group that got Lawrence last week,” he provided. “We barely got away.” Apparently, he was thoroughly convinced that the two vampiresses hadn’t heard anything they shouldn’t have. Buffy wished she felt that confidently about it.

“My poor, poor childe,” Willow cooed, sliding her arms up over his shoulder and grinding against him. Her tongue flicked out to trace his cheekbone. “We missed you this morning, my boy.”

“My apologies, sire,” he said subserviently. “Our guest was hungry.”

Buffy tried not to show her surprise at hearing Xander address Willow like that, especially after their little discussion. Apparently, greater degrees of duplicity were necessary around Willow. It was almost enough to make her decide to screw Xander’s plan and flee from this place with her family as fast as possible. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t be happening soon enough.

“Come, childe,” Willow cooed to Xander. “Cordy and I want to play. _Rough_.” A little giggle escaped her too-red lips.

Buffy saw something like fear cross Xander’s face before he turned and followed Willow obediently.

Drusilla tisked lightly as she watched them go. “Such chaos…” She turned back to Buffy and nuzzled her throat. “Our William is still asleep. No playing for us.” She pouted.

“Uh-huh.” Buffy managed a small smile, but couldn’t make herself return Dru’s caresses.

The madness seemed to recede from Dru’s eyes for a minute, and that eerie clarity and intelligence shone through, perfect and beautiful. It always astonished Buffy to see her grandsire like this, and these were the moments when she best understood why Spike loved this woman so deeply.

“There are things you have never seen, childe,” Drusilla said calmly, naturally, as if she were always this way. “Ways of keeping an errant and dangerous childe down. Starvation, imprisonment, bleeding, punishment…” She sighed. “So many ways.”

Buffy gulped. Dru’s vague descriptions left just enough to the imagination that her mind was already scrambling for the worst tortures possible.

“They can be kept up for _years_ ,” Dru informed her, leaning in close. “And, no matter how powerful a vampire would’ve become, they’ll never grow much beyond a fledgling. Forced to be weak and subservient forever. Of course, it drives most vampires half mad…” She trailed off, shrugged, and walked away, just expecting Buffy to follow after.

Buffy did so, almost convinced she could hear her heart pounding in her chest. It was the first real threat Drusilla had ever given her. Almost like the vampiress knew what she and Xander were planning…

And, at the thought of Xander, Buffy frowned again. She hadn’t been able to understand Xander’s weakness, his lack of control, his mercurial moods. Had that been what Drusilla was telling her? What had been happening to Xander while they were gone, and thus why he shouldn’t be trusted?

Drusilla looked back over her shoulder and held out once graceful hand to Buffy. Buffy clutched her elder’s fingers in hers, but Dru’s enigmatic smile told her nothing. Threat, information, neither, or both.

Buffy was really starting to remember why she hated the Hellmouth so much…


	4. Chapter 4

“Dalton,” Buffy said in surprise when she returned from the hunt one evening to find the newest guest to the Hellmouth. Behind her, Drusilla purred. 

They’d been the only two to go out that evening. Willow, Cordy, and Xander had been sequestered in their bedroom since last evening, and Spike had been locked up in his room when Buffy and Dru had left. They’d left him to himself since last night he’d taken down four of the local demon hunters without even breaking a (metaphorical) sweat. He had a tendency to go on benders after big kills. Buffy and Dru usually let him be for one or two days before yanking him out of the low that inevitably followed the high of the hunt.

Buffy wished Spike were here now, though, simply because she trusted him to be able to handle Dalton with his customary brashness.

The bookish vampire looked up from the papers scattered around him and gave Buffy a tight smile. “Back in town for the ceremony, as well?” he inquired politely. He rose and gave Dru a graceful bow of his head. After all, it wasn’t every day he encountered a Master of the Order.

Dru smiled and drifted over towards him, moving as gracefully as if she were the wind itself. “Words and ink crawling around like worms, deeper and deeper…” She slid her arms around Dalton from behind and massaged his temples lightly for a second before flitting away once more.

Apparently Drusilla’s last few days of lucidity had well and truly passed.

Dalton’s eyes widened, and he looked to Buffy for help. She just shrugged. Fortunately, Dru appeared to be in one of her fickle moods tonight and let him be.

“The pixies are playing with their boy,” she sing-songed, letting her eyelids flutter shut and giggling as if she could see the naughty images playing behind her closed eyes. Which, given her clairvoyant abilities, could well have been the case for all Buffy knew. “Always room for one more.” Drusilla’s large dark eyes stared into Buffy’s invitingly.

“Go on without me,” Buffy shook her head. She’d been keeping as safe a distance as she could from Willow over the past two days. Not too difficult since the other vampiric threesome had been in bed most of that time. It also meant that Buffy hadn’t had a chance to speak with Xander alone after their conversation had been interrupted, but nothing was perfect.

Drusilla shrugged. “Your loss,” she teased with a hint of that sisterly affection once more.

Buffy watched her go and bit her lip. She wasn’t sure if she was imagining it, but Dru had seemed more unhinged since they’d returned to Sunnydale. Or maybe it was just that Buffy hated this place so much.

Dalton watched Drusilla go with intelligent eyes that were remarkably free from all calculation. Civil servants didn’t need to jockey for power; they were set for unlife. “Behaving oddly, is she?” he inquired casually, pushing his glasses back up on the bridge of his nose and returning to his study of the papers before him.

“Everyone is. What’s new?” Buffy retorted defensively. She’d never really known how to act around Order members. Spike was disdainful of them; Drusilla practically worshipped the ground the walked on. But both seemed wary of the power the Order of Aurelius wielded.

“Hellmouths will do that,” Dalton agreed pleasantly enough. Buffy had to give him that much; he didn’t flaunt his power or act particularly arrogant. In fact, she almost liked Dalton. He reminded her a bit of the watcher and surrogate father she’d left behind all those decades ago…

“Really?” She’d had sneaking suspicions, but she’d always just assumed she was being paranoid. Nice to know her senses weren’t that far off base.

“Hellmouths are tricky things,” Dalton agreed, discussing this as if it were a casual everyday subject while he penned his name on one of the parchments before him. “They draw vampires, but don’t seem to particularly like them. We’re a bit too human for their tastes, I suppose.”

More like Giles every minute. “Lucky us,” Buffy grumbled.

“The joys of being half-breeds,” he concurred a bit bitterly. “Although we’re fortunate that your friend Willow has been able to control this Hellmouth so well.”

“Fortunate?” Buffy repeated in disbelief. “Because of Willow?” She looked at him skeptically.

“There are two ways a Hellmouth can twist vampires,” Dalton agreed. “It either makes them power-mad or apocalyptically suicidal.”

“And Willow falls neatly in the ‘power-mad’ category. That’s why you’re giving it to her, even though she’s not a true member of the Order,” Buffy realized.

Dalton gave her a tight smile. “The Order is very opposed to the end of the world. With all full-blooded demons banished from this plane, we are quite powerful. Without…”

“Better the devil you know, that the devil you don’t,” Buffy countered.

“Something like that.” He returned to his work.

Buffy shivered. Dalton himself wasn’t that powerful – in fact, she was willing to wager that she could take him easily – but his words spoke of ancient rites and magic she couldn’t even dream of. A dark echo of danger from his masters.

“I’m going to go check in on Spike,” she announced, more to break that eerie stillness than because Dalton needed to know.

He gulped at that. Even with the Order behind him, he was still here on his own. And Spike was one of the few vampires reckless enough to do him harm. The young Master simply had no respect for his elders. After watching countless vampires bow before the Order, Dalton could almost respect Spike for refusing to tow the party line so mindlessly.

“I will see you all again shortly enough,” Dalton agreed, humming softly to himself as if he were in on some joke that Buffy couldn’t even begin to comprehend.

She shook her head and left the amused scribe to his work. In another thousand years, the rest of them might all have killed each other in their little battles for dominance, but Dalton would still be there – unharmed – scratching away at his paperwork. It was sobering thought. And one that taught all too well that power wasn’t everything…

* * *

“Spike?” Buffy’s voice sounded hollow in the silent bedroom. Apparently Dalton’s words had struck deeper than she’d at first thought.

She got no response and, as she approached the bed, she was surprised to see Spike, curled in on himself, apparently asleep. In the flickering candlelight, the powerful curves of his back and bottom looked like they’d be warm to the touch. With a small smile, she kicked off her boots and pants and pulled off her shirt before crawling into bed behind him.

He murmured softly when her nude body spooned up against him from behind. “Buffy…” he sighed.

“Hey there, gorgeous,” she teased lightly, planting gentle kisses on the nape of his neck, following the strong line of his spine down. “Not coming out to play tonight?”

“Where’s the Wicked Witch of the West?” he retorted.

She couldn’t help but giggle at that. It really was too perfect a description of Willow. “She’s still got Xander chained to the bed. Everyone else is busy playing with him.” Buffy’s hand slid forward to gently encircle his growing erection. “I came here to see you…”

He purred and leaned back into her embrace. “Mmm…” He turned his head so that he could breathe in the perfume of her hair. He didn’t make any other move to touch her, however, remaining limp and passive in her arms.

And, as much as Buffy enjoyed having him completely at her mercy, she couldn’t help but ask, “Is everything all right?” Her lips found his temple and kissed it reverently.

He sighed. “Nothing worth fussin’ about, luv.”

“But?” she pressed in that stubborn tone that let him know all too well that she wouldn’t drop it until he’d told her what the problem was.

A bit of that nearly unrestrained passion flickered in the back of his blue eyes – annoyance at her persistent ways – before he smiled and kissed her. “Love you.”

Even after nearly fifty years, his kisses still left her breathless. Especially when they were soft and tender like this one. “Love you, too,” she murmured, nuzzling her face into the crook of his neck.

He pressed his body back into hers, felt the coarseness of the hairs between her thighs and her wetness against the curve of his ass. Always so eager for him, just as he was with her… “How ‘bout we take off tomorrow?” he inquired.

Buffy blinked at that. “What about Willow’s…thingy?” she wondered, waving her hands about inarticulately.

He snorted. “Near as I can tell, Red just wants me to muscle the demon hunters up a bit. Had a nice enough romp last night, but still don’t see much reason to play her game.”

“Fun stuff to kill?” Buffy guessed.

He frowned at that. “And give her the perfect openin’ to go after you,” he countered. He found her thigh with one hand and guided it over his hips, wrapping her further around him. “Don’t think I don’t see what she’s up to.”

“Yeah, she’s not winning any subtlety awards, is she?” Buffy sighed. “But Dalton just got in town. This ceremony or whatever should be over quick, and we can be gone. Of course, we could be gone even sooner if we ditched…” she added hopefully.

Spike sighed at that. “Dru’s a bit into the pomp and circumstance. Won’t wanna head out ‘til the fun’s over.”

“She could catch up with us,” Buffy encouraged. This was sounding better to her all the time. Just her and Spike, on their own, doing whatever they wanted… Even though they’d been in Sunnydale less than a week, already those old days of freedom felt so far away. Like a wearying, relentless force weighed down on them. _The Hellmouth…_

He shook his head. “Family and the Order are important to Dru. Gotta do my best to stand by her.”

Buffy bit her lower lip. There was a fierce thread of loyalty between her sire and grandsire. She didn’t come across often, just enough to know that it was completely unbreakable. Almost like the tie that kept her from leaving Spike behind. “It’ll be over soon,” she sighed, reluctantly resigning herself to the fact that they would be staying.

He groaned. “I hate this place,” he announced, his voice taking on the upper-class tones that he slipped back into when he was most agitated.

She stroked his snowy-white hair. Her demon was whispering now. About how if Dru were gone, they could leave whenever they pleased. She pushed those thoughts aside. Now wasn’t the time for them. “I hate it, too,” she sighed.

He chuckled at that. “Would imagine so,” he agreed, resting his head back down on the pillow. “Remember back in Lisbon when you and Dru cornered that Perrik Demon?” he sighed fondly.

Buffy giggled. “Hey, we weren’t half as bad as you trying to fend off the warlock in Richmond.” She affected a horrible British accent. “‘Watch the hair, you—ow!’”

He shot her a nasty look over his shoulder and made a little humphing sound, lying back down. Buffy breathed in deep and could still smell the lingering scent of alcohol on him. Bourbon, she would guess.

“You smell yummy,” she whispered softly against his back, trying to cheer him up.

He mumbled something inarticulate.

“What was that?”

He sighed. “You ever get the feelin’ something awful’s ‘bout to happen?” he repeated more clearly.

Buffy gulped at that, Drusilla’s prophetic words coming back to her in a rush. “That’s just the Hellmouth talking,” she insisted, whether for his benefit or her own, not even she was sure. Hesitantly, her hand slipped between their bodies, and one finger began to gently trace the curve of his ass. “I love you so much,” she whispered.

He sighed at that and rubbed back against her encouragingly.

She paused for a second then, surprised and unsure. She’d seen Dru comfort him this way dozens of times, but she’d never done it herself. Their relationship was such that he usually had to do the comforting. 

Not that she hadn’t imagined touching him like this for so long…

Her left arm slid under his waist, holding his body back against hers. One of the great advantages of having no circulation was that her arm didn’t go numb from holding his weight, leaving her hand free to gently encircle his erection once more.

He gasped and ground against the hand at the small of his back pointedly.

With a little gulp, her finger slipped between the perfect cheeks of his ass and began circling the puckered opening she found there slowly. When he didn’t object, her hand moved to between her own thighs and slipped inside three times – she was so wet for him that was all that was needed – before returning to his opening.

He hissed when she first entered him, but she was amazed how fast he relaxed, how easily he gave in to her. Her left hand continued to wrap around his cock, pulling on him slowly and rhythmically, while she worked a second finger into his ass.

“Luv,” he whispered, collapsing back into her arms in pleasure. He couldn’t believe he’d never tried this with her before. But Buffy had always been a lot more one-sided in her gender roles than Dru, and he’d foolishly assumed that it would feel the same to have his childe inside him as his sire.

But this was so much more intense. For so many years, he’d been cautious. Now, to finally give himself over entirely to a younger vampire was such a relief, so wonderful…

Buffy nibbled lightly at his ear and stroked his prostate with the pads on her index and middle fingers. She didn’t feel any pressing need to enter him further. Just this slow, gentle assurance that he could trust her, could always come back to her.

“Am I doing it right?” she teased lightly, already knowing from the expression on his face that she was doing a perfect job.

He tried to think of a comeback, but the feel of her – both deep inside of him and surrounding him – was too much. With a final gasp, he came into her hand, his entire body collapsing from the overwhelming ecstasy.

And, for that one moment, he felt a twinge of regret. Regret that Dru was his mate, so he could never give that to his beautiful childe. Regret that their respective ages meant that only too rarely would they be able to enjoy each other’s company in this way. Because, no matter how much he loved her or how much he believed it in private, he could never really declare her his equal. Able to enter his body just as he entered hers. Not yet, at least. 

Not until that same sodding organization he’d shunned for years welcomed her as a Master. It was silly which of Angelus’ teachings still held sway over him, but this was one of them. He was never going to show himself as anything but the master of all around him. Not ever again.

Buffy noticed the thoughts flickering over his face, slowly replacing the bliss of orgasm. “What’s the matter?” she wondered, concerned that she’d done something wrong.

He grinned and twisted in her arms, suddenly aggressive once more. She yipped in her surprise as he caught her to him, settling her in his lap with her thighs straddling his waist. “You’re _amazin’_ , my li’l slayer,” he purred against her cheek.

She breathed a sigh of relief at that. “Don’t scare me like that,” she complained. “Asshole.”

“And how well you know,” he countered.

Buffy’s cheek managed to redden at that. “Prick.”

“If you insist…” he teased, lowering her into his lap. His cock pierced her inner folds, burying itself deep inside her.

She tried to scowl at him, but it really was impossible with him inside her, moving in just the perfect way to bring her the most pleasure the quickest. “Some being so literal,” she griped before burying her fingers in his hair and pulling him in for a kiss.

“You taste like fresh blood,” he whispered huskily when they pulled apart. His demon’s hunger flitted in the back of his eyes. Apparently, he hadn’t fed yet tonight.

“I’m plenty full,” she agreed, tilting her head to one side and baring her neck. She pressed his mouth against her tender flesh, gasping when his fangs grazed the marks where he’d first made her decades before.

A roar of triumph ripped from his lips as his fangs sunk into her eager flesh. He pulled on the stolen life force in her body, feeding his own hunger. Somehow vampires kept some echo of their original human taste within their blood, and he could taste the faintest trace of the slayer’s power within her. Always made her the perfect aphrodisiac…

Neither bothered to drag their pleasure out, and they came together amidst moans and kisses, bodies grinding feverishly together and hands caressing bare flesh wherever they could find it. Finally collapsed together in a pile of tangled limbs, they wrapped the silk sheets around their bodies and just held on tight.

“I’m yours,” Buffy murmured softly against his throat, feeling sleepy from the sex and blood loss. “Always yours…”

“Always yours, too, kitten,” he purred in agreement.

Buffy sighed and held him closer. “Such a pretty vampire,” she teased lightly.

He let out a little snort of laughter before sobering once more. “Was me in there once, y’know,” he whispered.

“Mmm?” she inquired contentedly.

She could feel the movement of his throat against her forehead as he gulped. “Angelus and Darla and Dru,” he provided.

Buffy stilled at that. He often consoled Drusilla about things that had happened with their previous family, but he _never_ spoke of what had happened to himself in those days, back when he’d been too weak and young to fight his elders off…

“Just like Willow’s bitta fun,” he continued with a hollow laugh. “They’d tie me down for days and…” He trailed off, obviously embarrassed.

“Shh,” Buffy soothed him. “It’s all right now.” Not that it was, really. Even the undead couldn’t fully escape their pasts. Buffy still bore her own psychological scars from every time she’d been taken against her will. But she’d learned to move beyond it, just as Spike did. The vampires who didn’t were the ones who didn’t survive. A pretty but harsh mistress, their world was.

Exhausted by even this small admission, Spike’s eyelids shut and he drifted slowly into sleep. It was always a bit unnerving, showing humanity and risking yourself. But he trusted her with his life and – more importantly – his heart. Just as she trusted him.

And, as Buffy tried to fall asleep as well, she had to fight off the weight of that trust on her conscience. Because all too soon, she was going to try to snatch from her sire the thing his treasured most, his mate…

It was a strange myth that demons didn’t feel guilt. True, they didn’t care one way or another about the lives of humans. But, then, humans were insignificant little creatures. Nothing but food, really. Other vampires, however…

Buffy wondered if she would feel guilty slipping between Spike and Dru, ripping them apart.

But then Dru came back, oblivious to her childe’s distress, and climbed into the bed. “Mommy’s turn to be in the middle,” she whispered to Buffy, situating herself between the blonde pair.

And Buffy couldn’t help but feel her resolve harden. She watched Spike stir and then curl into Drusilla’s arms instead, and all she could think of was the unfairness of it all. After all, _she’d_ been the one to comfort him, while Dru had been off causing him even further agitation.

“Soon,” Drusilla murmured in her sleep. “So soon now. Dark death so close…”

Rage boiled in Buffy’s stolen blood.

And, below her, the Hellmouth cackled…


	5. Chapter 5

“What’s your plan?”

Xander grinned at that and pulled his pants back on. His feet were still a little shaky from the way he’d been used the past few days: heaven and hell, his sire and that bitch Willow. But, then, he was used to it.

Buffy instinctively caught him with one hand to steady him as he finished tugging up his pants. A part of her couldn’t help but remember Spike’s words the other night. Her fingers gently traced one of the bruises Willow had inflicted on his side, her touch a smooth caress against his irritated skin. The thought of Spike been treated in any way but with complete love made her blood boil; and, by association, Xander now seemed to have won that same vehement defense.

He smiled shyly at her then, looking almost unsure of what to do in light of this unexpected kindness. It certainly wasn’t the norm in any of Willow’s little parties. A wave of something almost like guilt passed through him at what he was about to do, but then he pulled away to get his shirt, and the plan snapped back into place with sharp focus.

“Not now,” he told her, looking about furtively. “It’s not safe…and not everyone’s here…”

“‘Everyone’?” Buffy repeated in surprise. “I thought this was just you and me.”

 _Don’t give too much away yet…_ “There are… _others_ who want Willow out as much as I do. They’ll help us,” he explained vaguely.

Buffy’s eyebrow quirked up at that. Not that she was surprised that other vampires in the clan would be just as dissatisfied as Xander was. It was just kind of impressive that any kind of organized resistance could have formed under Willow’s watchful eyes…

“How many?” she demanded.

He merely gave her that closed-off smile, revealing nothing. “Enough.”

And, unbidden, a chill went through her spine at that. “We’re taking out Willow and Dru?” she reiterated nervously.

“Just like I promised,” he grinned, showing a bit more fang than should have been possible out of game face.

She nodded slowly, still trying to wrap her mind around that fact. _How many…dozens?…of followers. We can outnumber them easily. Drusilla could actually be dead by the end of the week…_ As much as she’d lusted after Dru’s relationship with Spike over the years, she’d never really actually pictured a world without Dru. Gone forever. No more arguing over clothes, playing with each other’s hair. No more feminine majority ganging up on Spike and doing delicious things to him while he purred the night away. No more waking up surrounded by both sire and grandsire. No more Dru at all…

Put that way, it wasn’t so pretty a picture.

Xander seemed to sense he was losing his audience. “Spike can be all yours in only three days,” he prodded carefully.

“Three?” The word practically squeaked from her lips, but the question held strong.

“You’ll find out later tonight,” he promised. “Two hours before dawn. Head for St. Martin’s Cemetery. You want the old Valezquez mausoleum.”

Buffy took a deep, unnecessary breath to steel herself up. “I’ll want answers then.”

Xander gave her a mischievous smile. “And you’ll have them. We’ll explain everything at the meeting tonight.” He turned to walk away, but paused, looking back at her. “And make sure you’re not followed,” he added.

Buffy nodded, and the twisting worry in her gut – _oh god, something horrible is going to happen…_ – just got tighter.

* * *

Buffy had hunted by herself that night. She hadn’t felt this jittery since her human days, and she really didn’t like the sensation. Trying to act normal around anyone else would just have made things ten-times worse.

No demon hunters tonight. They were probably still regrouping from Spike’s little massacre a few days back. Buffy was more than glad to see them gone.

She found her appetite for blood full well before midnight – when _would_ the local college frat learn that their late night hazings just led to death, anyway? – and found herself wandering aimlessly. Other appetites remained unsatiated, but she didn’t trust herself around Spike and Dru right now. Not knowing what she knew…

Dru _had_ been good to her over the years. And, until she’d seen how Willow treated Xander, she hadn’t realized how good. She was strong for her age; she knew that. Perhaps the best lingering effect of her past slayerness was that she still learned survival skills quite quickly. But she wasn’t strong enough to take on Spike or Dru yet. They were both so much stronger than her, yet treated her as if she were their equal. Their little family really had always been quite happy.

And speak of the devil…

“Golden girl tastes like blood and death and…bubbles?” Dru cocked her head to one side and stepped forward out of the shadows.

Buffy winced visibly. Out of all the people she _really_ didn’t want to see right now, Dru definitely topped the list. “Decent hunting tonight,” she responded brusquely, pointedly setting off on her own once more.

Drusilla, never one to take the hint, followed after her. “The moon,” she sighed, dancing about to a rhythm all her own, “so dark and deadly…”

Buffy presumed she was referring to the fact that the new moon was coming up. Great, just what she wanted: her horoscope read. “That’s nice,” she agreed tightly.

Dru giggled and pirouetted ahead. “The stars fall one by one,” she sang.

Buffy fought back a sigh and rolled her eyes. She was beginning to worry she’d have to find a way to majorly ditch Dru before the night was done. The elder vampiress just didn’t seem to want to go off and hunt on her own.

So caught up was Buffy in her thoughts that she didn’t notice when Dru abruptly stopped before her until the vampiress was whispering dark secrets mere inches from her face.

“We felt it, you know,” Drusilla practically hissed. “When our Master met his end.” She frowned for a second. “Grandmother faded first… That doesn’t seem right.”

Buffy shivered at that. Talk of death in her line was far closer to the truth than she wanted Dru to be at that moment.

“Next came daddy,” Drusilla went on, seemingly oblivious to Buffy’s conflict. “He made me so _strong_ again…” She giggled before her expression turned wistful. “But I killed him just like he killed grandmother. Nasty pattern. Do you think my William will kill me one day?” She fixed Buffy with round dark eyes.

“Your William loves you,” Buffy replied, her voice sounding strained even to her own ears.

“And Angelus loved his Darla,” she replied. “And once…” a frown crossed her face, “…once I loved my Angel, as well…”

“Spike wouldn’t—” Buffy began again.

“No, I think not,” Dru cut her off. “I think the dissatisfaction lies…” She looked around furtively as if this were the biggest secret in the world. Apparently satisfied that all was clear, she beckoned Buffy inward with one long red nail. Buffy leaned in so that Dru’s lips her brushing her ear, her elder’s fingertips stroking her opposite cheek. “ _Elsewhere_ ,” Dru finished. And then, with a lightning slash, her fingernails turned harsh, leaving reddened gashes along Buffy’s cheek.

Buffy yanked her face back, clutching her cheek in pain and surprise. “W-What…?” she trailed off abruptly. She knew what, and she knew Dru wasn’t stupid enough to fall for any innocent act.

“My William is beautiful, isn’t he?” Drusilla nodded understandingly. “Do you want to know a secret?”

Buffy wasn’t sure she could take many more of Dru’s ‘secrets’. The question appeared to be rhetorical, however.

“Mummy and daddy weren’t pleased when I chose my sweet boy.” A dark gleam lit up her eyes. “But I knew from the beginning. Knew he wouldn’t be like them. He would be like me, and he would love me so perfectly…” She sighed. A somber note entered her voice that surprised Buffy. Dru sounded weary and resigned. “I can’t blame you for wanting him all to yourself. After all, that’s what every childe wants, isn’t it?”

Buffy blinked at that, trying to backtrack quickly now. “I-I never said—” she began.

“No, but I can see it in your eyes,” Dru sighed and sat back against one of the opposing tombstones, looking rather like an ironic imitation of Xander’s own position when he’d first suggested his plan to Buffy. “Especially when we’re so close to the gates of hell…”

This was solid ground. “Dalton says the Hellmouth affects vampires, makes their demons harder to control, makes them do things.”

Drusilla smiled softly, almost secretly, at that. “The Order is very wise,” she said simply. In a move that was strangely _human_ , her eyes drifted down to the ground, powerless and surprisingly coy. “Darla and Angelus liked to play games with me, you know,” she said, voice sounding distant and empty. “They thought it was oh-so-funny that I was mad. Little mind games. Pretending things hadn’t happened that I knew to be true, trying to convince me it was all one of my delusions.” She looked up to meet Buffy’s eyes, her expression oddly sincere and open. “After a time, I came to believe it, believed I was madder than I am…” A soft pause that felt like the weight of a thousand dark nights. “The Hellmouth feels like that.”

Buffy nodded numbly. She’d seen Dru act sane before, but never like this. “I think…” she began, but trailed off. With sudden horror, she realized she’d been about to confess to Dru all her suspicions about Xander, give everything away. 

“Think what?” Dru asked pointedly, eyes dangerous and calculating – and more than a little deranged – once more.

Buffy took a frightened step back. She’d seen Dru try violence and threats and mind-games to get her way before. Her elder’s thrall intimidated even her at times. But _never_ would she have put it within Dru’s capabilities to attack like this, with sympathy and trust and an intelligence so subtle Buffy hadn’t realized it fully even after living together for almost fifty years… “Nothing,” she insisted.

Drusilla rose with a graceful rustling of silken fabric. The wind blew through her long hair and dress then, making her look like a vengeful goddess. “My little girl’s keeping sweets all to herself,” she sing-songed, stepping closer.

Buffy backed up further, but before she could react, Dru was upon her. Buffy gasped in disbelief. She’d never seen Dru move that fast before. Or, more accurately, _not_ seen because it had been almost too fast for her eyes to make out.

“You think you know everything at fifty,” Dru giggled, the claws of one hand wrapped around Buffy’s throat, demonic eyes twinkling. “Think you’re _invulnerable_ …”

Buffy squirmed at tried to pull away. She discovered to her dismay that Dru’s grip was too strong. As if to emphasize that point, Dru lifted Buffy a few inches off the ground and squeezed harder.

“But you’re still frighteningly mortal,” Dru informed her, leaning in close. “ _Never_ forget that…” And, with a final flourish, she let Buffy fall to the ground.

Buffy tried to scramble to her feet, but she felt strangely dizzy. She tried to cough, but her voice seemed to have failed her – vocal chords still too compressed to make any sound. If she’d been human, she would be dead by now from suffocation. Even as it was, she was very lucky Dru had let her go instead of popping her head right off in her iron grip.

Dru watched Buffy’s predicament with uncharacteristic dispassion. “If you have any objections, feel free to voice them.” A little giggle at the impossibility of that task. Crazy Dru was back…

Buffy merely glared, knowing perfectly well that the elder vampiress knew that she couldn’t talk.

“Good girl,” Drusilla cooed, patted Buffy on the cheek, and then vanished back into the blackness.

Buffy shakily rose to her feet, one hand cradling her bruised throat. Already she could feel it healing itself. One of the best things about being a vamp was the healing; she was even faster at it now than when she’d been the slayer. It still hurt like hell, though.

And, with a scent of the night air, she calculated she still had a few hours before her clandestine meeting with Xander. Plenty of time to learn to talk again…

* * *

“I almost thought you weren’t coming.”

Buffy started and spun around to see Xander. God, she was getting really sick of getting caught off guard. She wondered if that was another Hellmouth side effect, or she was just preoccupied. “Don’t do that,” she said, voice still a bit hoarse.

“Jumpy?” Xander guessed, offering her his hand and leading her toward the large mausoleum.

“Why shouldn’t I be?” she retorted, trying to sound as confident as possible. The truth of the matter was that Drusilla had spooked her severely. “Cryptic messages and secret meetings in abandoned cemeteries.”

Xander nodded at that. “Willow’s spies won’t be here,” he explained. “We’re too close to the central headquarters of the primary demon hunting gang in town.”

“And that’s supposed to make me feel _safer_?” Buffy retorted sarcastically. “Now, instead of getting caught, we get caught out on our own and…killed…” She trailed off slowly as they entered the old mortuary building.

Xander’s dark eyes glinted in the candlelight as he gestured to the assembled onlookers. “Meet our allies.”

Buffy blinked in disbelief. And then a bark of laughter escaped her lips. “Are you crazy?” she demanded. “They’re _human_!”

“Humans who have trained all their lives to kill vampires,” Xander countered. “They’re more than capable of taking out Willow, Drusilla, and anybody else.”

Buffy crossed her arms over her chest skeptically. “Then why haven’t they?” she retorted.

“Because they need to get through Willow’s security measures first,” Xander insisted. “Isn’t that right?” He turned to the apparent leader of the demon hunters, a tall black man with a muscular build and a look in his eyes that indicated only too well that he was all too accustomed to killing.

“We’ve taken down worse witches than yours,” the man agreed. “And tougher Masters than this Drusilla…”

Buffy had to bite her lip to keep from vamping out at him. Arrogant human, just like she’d been when she was mortal… “So we’re the only two on the inside then?” she demanded of Xander.

“We can’t trust anyone else. They’re all afraid of Willow. We can’t know that they wouldn’t tell her,” he answered.

She nodded slowly. “Cordy know about this?” she demanded. “That you’re planning on letting a gang of demon hunters into her home?”

A hint of sorrow entered Xander’s eyes at that. “She’s under Willow’s thumb, too,” he admitted sadly. “But once she’s free…”

“You _hope_ she’ll forgive you,” Buffy pointed out.

Xander’s eyes flashed gold. “She doesn’t care about Willow. She’s been nothing but a slave all these years, and I’m going to free her!”

 _If you honestly believe that there’s nothing real between Willow and Cordelia, then you’re even more nuts than Dru_. Buffy didn’t say that out loud, of course. Because she was belatedly becoming more and more aware of the fact that she was trapped, that these people could kill her at any minute, and only Xander’s intervention seemed to be stopping them. Best not to piss him off.

“What’s the plan, then?” she sighed.

He smiled happily at that. “We attack during the ceremony on Monday,” he explained, “while everyone’s distracted. You and I have to let everyone in through Willow’s wards.”

Buffy nodded slowly. “Why do you need me?” she countered. “You can let them in all on your own.”

Xander’s eyes narrowed at some distant memory. “Because Willow will be… _watching_ me,” he replied.

Buffy caught the hidden meaning, however. He’d probably be thoroughly delegated to pet status before the ceremony and thus unable to escape and let their ‘allies’ in…

“And then they…what? Kill everything in sight?” Buffy demanded.

“Sounds good to me,” the leader of the humans replied.

Buffy glared at him once more.

“They know not to kill us,” Xander hastily amended. “Or Cordy and Spike. Just the rest of them.”

Buffy worried her lip between her teeth. “And what was this about me taking down Willow?” she asked.

The demon hunter answered for Xander. “We need someone to keep the witch for working her magic when we attack,” he explained. “Could be the shift of battle.”

Buffy nodded at that. “I wouldn’t even have to defeat Willow…”

“…Just distract her long enough that the rest of us can take her out,” Xander finished the thought eagerly.

Buffy paused and thought on that. She didn’t like the hostility radiating off of their allies, and even more so she didn’t like betraying her kind to humans. But if she said anything too dangerous, they could stake her where she should. Out of the corner of her eye, she counted the crossbows in the room. She didn’t like those odds. Especially since all the holders were undoubtedly very good shots.

“How do we know they won’t turn on us once we’ve given them what they want?” Buffy finally demanded.

“Don’t worry about it,” Xander assured her. “We’ve been working together for years.”

“We believe we can trust Xander to leave town and never come back once we’re done,” the human leader replied.

Buffy’s eyes narrowed. “That time when we were attacked…”

“We do apologize for that,” the human agreed. “We thought you were supposed to be caught in our trap like all the others before you.”

“I kinda didn’t have a chance to warn them in advance,” Xander apologized, “but I told them not to follow after you, made sure they knew you were cool.”

Buffy was feeling less and less ‘cool’ every minute. Her demon was threatening to erupt in all its fury, and it took all her self-control to beat it out, to get out of this situation alive… “It’s not a bad plan,” she finally conceded. It was a rather good plan, actually. It could really work.

“You in?” Xander asked, grinning.

She hesitated for a second. _Never._ “Sure,” she said with a false, bright smile. “As long as Spike goes free.”

Contrite nods.

“Great,” Xander said, rubbing his hands together. “We should break this up then. We don’t wanna be seen together.”

Buffy was more than eager to comply with that. “I’ll go first,” she volunteered. No one stopped her. She almost breathed a sigh of relief when she exited the mausoleum, but didn’t dare. They still might be able to see her.

Running as fast as she could, she vanished into the night, heading desperately back to a home that she knew all too well wasn’t safe anymore…

* * *

“She was lying. She’ll turn against us as soon as she can.”

“I know,” Xander agreed, disappointed. “We still don’t kill her, though.”

“Oh?”

Xander’s eyes flashed yellow. “I’ve wanted her from the first moment I laid eyes on her,” he insisted vehemently. “And, with everyone else gone, she’ll have no one to turn to but me.” _Cordy and Buffy all mine, forever…_ The thought was nearly enough to make him swoon.

“And Spike?”

Xander smiled. “Don’t worry, Wood,” he assured his human ally. “You can have your revenge where your father failed.”

Simon Wood smiled back. _Finally get to kill the monster that murdered my grandmother. Finally win my father’s respect. Finally._

“Plan B, then?” Wood asked.

“Plan B,” Xander agreed.

And, visions of victory clear in their heads, they parted ways each to set their own parts of the plan in motion…


	6. Chapter 6

Buffy had been relieved to find Spike and Dru already asleep that first night after she came home. It gave her some time to plan, to figure out what to do. She was equally thankful that Xander didn’t return to the mansion for that day. He’d obviously taken up shelter in one of the many other safe houses around Sunnydale.

She’d tossed and turned that night, her dilemma agitating her. Because, as much as she knew she couldn’t go along with Xander’s plan and betray them all, she wasn’t sure if she could tell Spike and Drusilla, either. Well, she guessed Dru already had her suspicions. But Spike? Spike would be pissed. _Majorly_ pissed…

She got virtually no sleep at all and left bed before either her sire or grandsire awoke. At least she had some time to make her choice. The ceremony was the night after next. Surely, she could find some way of convincing Spike and Dru to leave this place before then…

Feeling overly weary, she ventured into the large living room that Willow used as her audience chamber.

“Had fun playing last night, did we?” Willow teased, looking up from the table where Dalton had set out all the implements for the ceremony.

Buffy managed a tight smile. “Fun enough.”

Willow tisked. “You look tired,” she said with false sympathy. “Perhaps you’d find our bed more relaxing?”

It wasn’t subtle. Willow hadn’t even meant it to be. “I’m fine where I am,” Buffy informed her coldly.

Willow’s eyes narrowed. “Difficult girls have a tendency to get hurt,” she said coldly, eyes raking up and down Buffy’s body. “If I’d had you from the start…” she trailed off, a menacing gleam in her eye.

“You didn’t,” Buffy retorted. “And you never will.”

Willow gave her a small secretive smile in response. “My boy knows not to underestimate my powers,” she informed Buffy smugly before turning to face the newest arrival.

Buffy turned as well. She hadn’t even seen Xander come in. He tilted his head in an almost imperceptible nod in her direction, and she nodded back. So subtle that not even Willow’s conniving mind picked up on it.

“We missed our puppy last night,” Willow scolded Xander.

He dropped to his knees before her and rubbed his cheek submissively against her stomach. “My apologies, sire. I encountered the demon hunters and didn’t want to lead them back here.”

It took all of Buffy’s considerable control not to gasp in disbelief. Xander was almost the perfect liar, deceitful and oh-so-sycophantic. It made her trust his plan to betray them all to the humans even less.

“Mustn’t lose my favorite play thing right before my ascension,” Willow agreed with a sigh, stroking Xander’s hair. She shook her head and turned back to the multitude of papers before her. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t look as though I’ll have much time to play…”

“Let me do it for you,” Xander encouraged, looking up at her with big innocent brown eyes. “Such a special occasion… You should be celebrating with your mate.”

Willow grinned, and the nail of one index finger turned into a demonic claw. Slowly, she scratched a deep furrow across his cheek, watching the swelling blood form a thin line up his face. Xander didn’t even flinch. “See how obedient my puppy is?” Willow’s eyes narrowed on Buffy. “Others could learn well from his example…”

Buffy crossed her arms over her chest. “You want to take me down, I’d like to see you try it,” she retorted.

Willow scowled and abandoned the struggle for the time being. She turned back to Xander with a falsely benevolent smile. “Take care of all this paperwork for me,” she ordered him, “and _maybe_ I won’t punish you for not appearing in my bed last night.”

Xander shivered at past remembered punishments. “Whatever you wish, sire,” he purred against her thigh.

A chill went through Buffy’s spine as she watched them. Death, destruction, and torment on the horizon. It was too much for her to bear right then, and she quickly turned away, heading back to her own rooms.

“Not coming to join us?” Willow taunted, obviously convinced that Buffy’s reaction was due to her own threats.

Buffy didn’t bother to contradict her. She just fled the living room.

“Even Spike’s childe is in awe of your power now,” Xander praised Willow, barely concealed venom just below the surface.

Willow smiled a cold, wicked smile at that. “Oh, she will be such a sweet puppy to play with,” she sighed before turning back to the matter at hand. “To your work.” She patted Xander’s cheek in a condescending way and extricated herself from his body. “Don’t worry,” she winked at him, “I’ll take _good_ care of your mommy.” And, with a parting smirk, she vanished into her bedroom.

A low growl rumbled through Xander’s chest, and he wanted nothing more then than to burst through that door and rip Willow away from his sire.

All it good time, though.

Because, tonight, he’d finally have his revenge…

* * *

“Miss Edith doesn’t want the pink dress; she wants the blue one!”

Spike sighed. “She doesn’t _have_ a blue one, pet,” he reminded her gently.

Dru just shook her head. “I saw it,” she insisted. “ _Aaall_ wrapped around that pretty girl I ate last night.”

“Oh,” Spike paused, “ _that_ dress. Don’t think ‘s gonna fit Miss Edith, luv.”

Drusilla pouted at that, looking up at him with big round eyes that melted his heart.

“No, don’t cry, princess,” he hastily backtracked. “Hand ‘er over, and ‘ll find a way to make things right.”

Drusilla giggled at that, making him wonder if her little fit had just been a joke all along. “My Spike is so good to me,” she purred, wrapping her arms around his neck and placing a soft kiss on his pulse-point.

Buffy walked in on the sight of Dru with Spike clutched in one hand, her favorite doll in the other, and a very distasteful look on Spike’s face as he held out a frilly blue dress. Under other circumstances, she probably would have thought it was funny. Under the weight of what she was about to do, humor escaped her.

“Good thing you’re here to save me, luv,” Spike grinned at her. “Think ‘ve already been tricked into takin’ up needlepoint.”

Dru laughed at that and kissed him again. “Silly boy,” she cooed.

Buffy managed a tight-lipped smile. Her lack of reaction didn’t go unnoticed.

“Somethin’ wrong, pet?” Spike frowned, dropping the dress and studying her intently.

Buffy bit her lower lip, fidgeted, sat down on the edge of the bed… “I have a confession to make,” she finally blurted out, looking anywhere but at them.

Spike’s confused expression remained. Drusilla’s turned serious, and she left the circle of Spike’s arms to crawl onto the bed beside Buffy, moving panther-like until her lips were inches from the former slayer’s ear.

“Tell us,” she whispered breathily.

Buffy gulped and studied the hands folded in her lap intently. “In two nights, Xander plans to let a gang of demon hunters in,” she said very quietly, for fear that her voice would shake otherwise. “They’re going to try to kill Willow and Drusilla, take over the Hellmouth, and drive the rest of us out.” She paused for a second. “And he kinda thinks I’m going to help him,” she winced.

Drusilla shook her head and stroked Buffy’s golden locks soothingly.

Spike’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “And why exactly would Xander think _that_?” he demanded, his voice near to a growl.

Buffy dared to look up at him. “Because I sort of said I’d help him, okay?” she snapped, more angry with herself than she was at him. “He just lured me in, and I fell for it. Happy now?”

“Happy?” Spike choked in disbelief. “We hafta… Oh bugger!” He fell back onto the couch opposite the two women, head in his hands, trying to absorb it all. “Knew that boy was trouble,” he muttered under his breath.

“My girl wanted me dead,” Dru tisked lightly. “But mommy always knew something was afoot.” She giggled. “I knew…”

Spike’s anger seemed to take focus again at that, and he turned his attention to Buffy once more. “You tried to have Dru killed…” he accused in a low hiss, the flashing gold in his eyes belying his calmer tone.

Buffy gulped at that. She didn’t ever think she’d seem his this mad before, so angry that he couldn’t even seem to explode… “I-I just wanted to be with you,” she pleaded weakly.

“And you thought killin’ the love of my bloody unlife would be the best way of goin’ about it?!” The statement started off softly but ending in a roaring crescendo. “You ungrateful little bitch!” he screamed.

Before Buffy could react, his fist shot out and clipped her across the jaw, sending her sprawling to the floor at his feet. She whimpered in a subservient manner, but it didn’t seem to be enough to stop him.

“When have we _ever_ not given you everything your li’l heart desires? And _this_ is how you repay us?” he raged, grabbing the fabric of her blouse roughly and yanking her up so that they were nose-to-nose.

Buffy winced in anticipation of another blow. But it didn’t come.

“Not a century before, you were in her shoes,” Drusilla whispered in Spike’s ear, hand still firmly clasped about his wrist and halting his attack. “You would honestly expect her to have less love for you than you have for me?” She blinked at him with wide, innocent eyes.

“This isn’t the time for your mind-games, Dru,” he informed her, voice cold and flat. His grip on Buffy relaxed as his attention wavered, however, as she slumped back to her knees on the floor.

“You are the one who always so treasures speaking the truth,” Dru retorted, her body sliding around his until she stood between him and Buffy, safeguarding her grandchilde.

“You _don’t_ wanna piss me off right now,” he warned.

“You tried to kill Angelus yourself a number of times, if I recall correctly,” she persisted, dark eyes flashing. “Remember how he punished you afterwards?”

A cold shiver ran down Spike’s spine. “Stay out of this,” he repeated, a little less confidently this time.

“You swore you would never make the same mistakes daddy made,” Dru pressed, crouching down in front of Buffy now. One long-fingered hand reached out to brush a lock of hair off of the blonde’s forehead.

That seemed to enrage Spike all over again. “For all the good it did me,” he growled, eyes flashing dangerously at Buffy.

She gulped and fought back the tears in her eyes. God, he’d never looked at her like this before. Like she was vile, repugnant. Like he didn’t love her at all…

“All childer desire their sires,” Dru sing-songed.

“No!” Spike insisted vehemently and angrily. “Go on, then,” he snapped at Dru. “Side with _her_. ‘m sick of all you soddin’ bints!”

A low growl rumbled through his chest and, with a swirl of black leather, he fled the room, slamming the door so hard behind him it cracked on its hinges.

“Oh god,” Buffy gasped, “this is all my fault…”

“Shh,” Dru cooed softly. “Nothing you could have done to change this.”

“I-I didn’t mean for… He’s coming back, right?” she brushed at the tears streaming down her cheeks.

Dru tilted her head far to one side, waves of black hair cascading over her shoulder as she did so. “Our William belongs to the stars now. They will guide all our fates…”

Buffy didn’t find that reassuring in the slightest.

* * *

“Mmm, you’re back,” Cordelia purred, smiling as Willow crawled into bed behind her.

“Surprise,” Willow agreed with a soft smile, nuzzling her mate’s throat. “You get me all to yourself this evening.”

Cordy’s fingers ran lazily through Willow’s crimson hair. “To what do I owe the honor?” she teased.

“Surprisingly, your boy,” Willow admitted, rolling her lover onto her back and licking a long, slow line up her naked chest.

Cordy purred in response and lay back to enjoy Willow’s attentions. “I told you he was a good boy,” she smiled happily. “Always thinking of his sire…”

Willow grinned mischievously. “I think of you, too,” she purred.

And Cordelia grinned. “Show me then,” she challenged, then laughed as Willow attacked her with kisses…

* * *

The normal evening shuffle of minions had kept Xander preoccupied by Willow’s paperwork. Or, at least, he _tried_ to keep himself preoccupied. Otherwise he’d have to listen to every moan and sigh coming from the bedroom.

As the last of the stragglers went out for the evening, however, Xander grinned and instantly rose from the desk. He tested the air, found the coast clear, and slipped silently out into the night.

The crescent of the moon was almost invisible tonight, making it even darker than the previous evening. That suited Xander just fine. He wandered out into the backyard of the old mansion to where the property lined the woods on the west edge of Sunnydale.

Even with his enhanced vampiric senses, he wouldn’t have spotted them if he hadn’t known they were there.

“By all means,” he whispered into the warm night air, “come on in.”

Willow’s wards let the troop of demon hunters enter with no resistance. “Nice trick, that,” Wood commented. “Creating an invite spell that works on humans instead of vamps.”

“Willow’s not to be underestimated,” Xander agreed nervously.

“She occupied?”

“With Cordy,” Xander agreed. “You’re free to do your thing.”

Wood nodded and signaled for the first group to approach the mansion. He was about to send his own group out to search as well when the mansion’s back door suddenly slammed shut, and a distinctive platinum-haired figure emerged.

A wicked grin lit up Wood’s lips. “Just make it easy for me, why don’t you?” he said, signaling for his team to close in on their prey…

* * *

“Mustn’t beat yourself up,” Dru chided, picking the blue dress off of the floor and dusting it off.

Buffy couldn’t believe how casually Dru was acting, like nothing horrible or momentous had just happened. “He hates me,” she sulked. “I should’ve just gone through with it. At least then I wouldn’t have lost him completely…”

“Watch your tongue, little girl,” Drusilla growled dangerously, startling Buffy out of her moping as another wave of fear ran through her. Dru’s expression suddenly softened again when she had the former slayer’s attention, however. “Do not underestimate our sweet William,” she soothed, setting the dress down on the armchair and coming to sit beside Buffy on the bed. “You want me to tell you something?”

Buffy looked into those deep, dark eyes and honestly couldn’t decipher whether friend or foe lay within. She nodded slightly nonetheless.

Dru’s voice dropped to a husky whisper. “Spike’s never able to remain angry with those he loves for long.”

“Like he’s ever yelled at _you_ like that,” Buffy grumbled, unconvinced and partially unwilling to be comforted by the very vampiress she’d thought to kill only days before.

Drusilla laughed and lay back against the sheets. “Oh, if only you knew, my dear childe…” She sighed.

“I’ve never seen Spike mad at you,” Buffy commented, more softly this time. “At least, not for more than a few seconds.”

Drusilla smiled at that. “Nor I him with you,” she countered, “until today. But you’ve only been with us for fifty years. You’ve missed so much…” The wistful tone in Drusilla’s voice indicated that not all of it had been pleasant.

“You don’t think this is…it?” Buffy couldn’t help but shudder at the thought of being banned from Spike’s bed, his arms, his affections.

Dru took a deep breath. “I remember what it was like to be trapped in the middle,” she said, her voice sounding distant. “Loved by both but never sure whether their hate for each other would destroy me…” She paused and seemed to see far off things. “That fate is being decided even as we speak. Right at this minute…”

Buffy’s eyes widened at that, recognizing echoes of the prophecy Drusilla had spoken back in England. “W-What do you mean?” she asked shakily.

“The cards have _aaall_ been laid out long before now,” Dru tisked. “Nothing to do, but watch them fall.”

Suddenly terrified, Buffy caught Dru’s shoulders roughly. “Stop talking in riddles, dammit! What’s happening? Is Spike in trouble?”

“I always told him that dark girl from New York would come back to haunt him one day,” Drusilla continued enigmatically. “Their battle begins anew.”

The details were as murky as ever; the message was clear. “No…” Buffy whispered. “I changed my mind. I don’t want to fight over him. I don’t… I had to try to kill you for the prophecy to work, dammit!” she insisted vehemently.

Drusilla just chuckled. “Silly girl. One never knows how far one has to go to set things in motion.”

Buffy leapt off the bed. “We have to help him,” she insisted. “We have to—”

Drusilla caught her wrist with a steely grip. “Do you honestly believe you can undo what has been written in stars?”

And Buffy shivered. She didn’t know what to believe anymore.

* * *

“Spike.”

Spike’s eyebrow rose in surprise to find himself being slowly surrounded by a group of humans. His attention instantly turned to the leader of the group, a tall black man that…nah. Spike had thought he’d seen something familiar in that face for an instant, but he’d never seen this guy before in his unlife.

“I take it Xander was a bit deceptive about the date of his li’l party,” Spike commented confidently, trying to ask as nonplussed as possible by the fact that he was surrounded by humans with crossbows.

Wood ignored the sarcasm. “I’ve been waiting for this all my life, _vampire_ ,” he spat, raising his crossbow, “and my dad waited all of his.”

“Might want to try the telly, mate,” Spike suggested cockily. “’S good for passin’ the time when you’ve got nothing better to do.”

Wood’s eyes narrowed. “You have no clue who I am, do you?”

“This a new reality show, then? I get twenty questions to get it right, or ‘m dust?”

“You killed my grandmother!” Wood hissed.

“Your _grandmother_?” Spike repeated in wide-eyed disbelief. “Look, mate. ‘m sure there’re plenty of people out there who’ve gotten much closer relations offed by yours truly. Come back when you’ve got one of them, and we’ll try the banter again.”

“This is just a joke to you, isn’t it?” Wood shook with anger. “A game?”

“If you’d asked the questions with the clock like I suggested, _then_ it would’ve been a game,” Spike corrected, grinning in wicked amusement.

Wood’s eyes narrowed, and the last of his patience snapped. “Die!” he yelled, firing his crossbow at the same moment.

Spike looked down at his chest, stared at the bolt sticking out right above his heart, and swore. “Oh, fuck…”

* * *

“Do you love me?” Willow purred, rising up from between Cordelia’s legs and climbing up her body.

“Mmm,” Cordy murmured in satisfaction.

“Your turn to show me, then,” Willow teased, giggling when Cordy rolled her over. Their lips met in a passionate kiss, and…

 _BANG!_

They jolted apart in surprise when the door burst open, blinking at Xander’s sudden arrival.

“Leave us alone, you stupid boy!” Willow growled angrily, eyes flashing yellow as she sat up on the bed. “I’ll have you head for—”

But Xander stepped aside at that moment, allowing his allies a clear shot. The sound of a bowstring firing, a whistle of air, horrified screams, and then an explosion of dust…


	7. Chapter 7

Drusilla caught Buffy’s wrist with a steely grip. “Do you honestly believe you can undo what has been written in stars?”

And Buffy shivered. She didn’t know what to believe anymore. Slowly, she pulled free of Dru’s grip, surprised to discover that the elder vampiress let her. “I have to try,” she insisted. “Help me?”

Dru’s eyes got a far away look. “Even now, the dust settles…”

“Then we have to hurry,” Buffy insisted vehemently before racing from the room.

And Dru sighed, shook her head at the impetuousness of youth, and followed after…

* * *

Spike fell to his knees with a gasp of shock, tensed up and waiting for his body to disintegrate around him. He frowned when it didn’t happen after a minute and pulled the arrow from his chest. Shinning steel glinted in the soft glow from the mansion’s windows.

“Hate to break it to you,” Spike let out a giddy little chuckle, “but some good old-fashioned ash would’ve been more effective.”

“If I wanted to kill you right away,” Wood agreed, circling his prey carefully now.

Spike rose to his feet to keep his eyes on his newfound enemy, and the world seemed to swim. Maybe that wound had taken more out of him than he’d thought…

“But, you see,” Wood continued in a pleasant voice, “a quick arrow to the heart would end things far too soon. Three generations of family anguish deserves a little more vengeance than that, don’t you think?”

Spike growled and then lurched forward, stumbling over his feet. His vision swam before him, and suddenly he felt a nausea he hadn’t experienced in over a century. “W-What did you do to me?” he asked shakily, frightened again now.

Wood smiled. “I’m not foolish enough to think I can take you one-on-one in an even fight,” he said simply. “So I evened things up a bit.”

Spike’s gaze turned to the arrow in his hand. “You poisoned it,” he accused before staggering from another wave of dizziness.

“Don’t worry,” Wood assured him patronizingly. “If you manage to get out of this alive – or, that would be ‘undead’ now, wouldn’t it? – the drugs will wear off in a day or so. Of course, that won’t do you much good if you’re already dust…”

A low growl emitted from Spike’s throat and, fighting off the dizziness and nausea, he lunged at Wood, fangs bared.

The human leapt to the side just in time, pulling a pair of twin daggers from the sheaths at his waist. “Good,” he said with grim determination. “I was hoping you’d still be able to put up a bit of a fight.”

Spike spun, and the world seemed to swirl around him. He could make out the circle of humans that surrounded their little death-match, but they seemed to be spinning blindingly fast so that he had to close his eyes to keep his balance enough to stay on his feet.

Twin glancing pains to his right arm and stomach, and he opened his eyes once more to find two bleeding gashes. The tips of Wood’s blades were stained crimson, and the demon hunter had a self-satisfied smile, like this fight was the culmination of his existence.

“You desperately need another hobby,” Spike informed him, sounding surprisingly steady to his own ears.

“But this one’s just so much fun,” Wood retorted with a grin.

Spike lunged and caught human flesh with his claws this time. A sharp stab to his shoulder that he was sure went all the way through to his back was the response. He howled in pain, slashed out wildly, and his fist luckily glanced across Wood’s cheek.

The two men staggered apart, Spike’s feet growing increasingly shaky from the drugs and the pounding pain in his shoulder, and Wood dropping the dagger in his bleeding left arm and turning to a one-handed attack.

Spike saw Wood coming, but whatever fight was left in him faded then. Another wave of dizziness washed over him, and this one brought weariness to his limbs as well. His legs trembled, then gave way, and he fell to his knees, coughing and gagging on nothing.

“A little bit of fight,” Wood said, the tip of his dagger catching Spike under the chin, “but not _too_ much…”

* * *

Chaos had run rampant through the mansion as the humans screamed and fought for their lives…and to kill as many as they could.

Buffy found herself almost instantly blocked by a snarling mess of fists, fangs, and stakes. And the really scary thing was that the humans seemed to be winning. They’d struck at a good time; most of Willow’s minions were out hunting for the night.

Snapping the neck of the nearest human, she pushed her way past the battling throngs. Fortunately, the fights seemed to be fairly set at the moment so no one turned to attack her. One of Willow’s minions crashed into her just before she reached the long worktable by the entrance hallway, however, and she fell to the floor, the other vamp’s weight unintentionally pinning her down.

She felt the vamp atop her explode into a shower of dust, saw the human’s stake rise yet again…

“Stop!” Drusilla’s voice seemed to sound with an eerie echo, a hidden power within its cadences.

The human froze in place, entranced.

Buffy’s claws lashed out, tearing his head right off, as she scrambled back up to her feet. “Where’s Spike?” she asked Dru, having to yell to be heard over the fray.

Drusilla rubbed her temples as if hoping for a guiding vision. “Too much disorder,” she shook her head in despair.

“A little help?” A voice intruded on their conversation.

Buffy looked down in surprise to find Dalton hiding under the long table. Apparently, that was his standard reaction whenever he got caught in the middle of a fight. Not a bad way to stay alive, really, as long as his side won in the end…

Drusilla nodded at that. “We will safeguard the Order,” she agreed, backhanding a human who’d decided to try his luck with her. Her next blow shattered the bones in his face, driving them into his brain, and killing him instantly.

Buffy caught the fallen sword from another of Willow’s minions and wielded it with deadly accuracy, decapitating two of their foes in quick succession. She noticed that the remainder of the vamps seemed to be moving their battles towards her and Dru, sensing the dark power there that could aid them.

“We don’t have time to fight them all!” Buffy insisted frantically. “We have to find Spike.”

“H-He went out less than a minute before they attacked,” Dalton provided, cowering behind Dru. “I tried to get out, but there are even more humans outside.”

Buffy’s jaw set in a grim line. “Then, those are the humans we’re fighting,” she concluded, making a dash for the back door.

Drusilla swung a surprised Dalton over her shoulder in a fireman’s carry and ran after her out into the night, and in search of their lost lover…

* * *

Xander grinned at the moment of horrified recognition on Willow’s face as the bolt whizzed through the air, memorized every detail to savor for the rest of his existence…

A shriek escaped Cordelia’s lips and, before anyone could react, she leapt in front of her mate, taking the arrow meant for Willow deep into her chest.

A moment of stunned silence as Cordy glanced down at the bolt lodged in her chest. She looked up, dark eyes meeting Xander’s one last time, pleading for his help, before her body exploded into a shower of dust.

Xander froze in horrified silence for a second, unaware that Willow was in just as much stunned shock behind Cordy’s ashes on the bed. And then a ragged scream escaped his lips. “Nooo!” he roared, turning on the humans that were supposed to deliver him from this prison, not condemn him forever.

The demon hunters didn’t even have time to react before their long-time ally attacked with a fury like none they’d ever seen before. Flesh tore, bones snapped, lives bled out on the bedroom floor.

But not one of the deaths could erase from Xander’s mind that one moment of horrified betrayal in Cordelia’s eyes when she’d looked at Xander and _known_.

All the humans in the immediate vicinity reduced to shredded corpses at his feet, Xander collapsed, hands over his face, body coated with blood, and hoping that some of it would make the images of his sire’s death stop playing over and over again before his eyes.

It was a vain hope.

But then he heard sobs echoing his own. He’d forgotten about Willow in the interval, but he turned to her now. Hopeful for the first time because surely she would end his misery, send him back to hell where he belonged…

Willow’s red head hung in sobs, tears streaming down her face and mingling with the dust of her mate. The gray, sticky paste clung to her cheeks and hands as she tried desperately to find some last substance of comfort in her love’s remains.

Xander rose to his feet before the bed, angry, hopeless tears on his own face, and cleared his throat, catching her attention. Time to end this once and for all.

But, as Willow’s face turned up to meet his, he saw a monster rising that he had never imagined before, and suddenly his blood ran cold again. He had thought there was nothing scarier than the Willow he had once known. He was wrong…

* * *

“My family’s waited two lifetimes for this,” Wood hissed, pressing the sharp edge of the blade deeper into Spike’s throat. “I’m gonna—”

Whatever Wood was ‘gonna’ do was lost forever, however, when screams erupted from the circle of demon hunters observing the fight.

Drusilla, Buffy, and Dalton launched themselves upon the attackers, snapping half a dozen necks before their presence was even fully noticed. Crossbows were quickly raised in retaliation, however, and Dalton ducked for the cover of a grove of nearby trees, leaving the two vampiresses on their own.

“Thanks a lot!” Buffy exclaimed in outrage, catching one of the shooters by the feet in a flying tackle. The two of them grappled for the stake in the woman’s belt, before Buffy caught her throat and slowly squeezed the life out of her.

Another barrage of arrows came her way, and Buffy covered herself with the woman’s body, literally forming a human shield.

Drusilla fared even better and all without breaking a sweat. Her dark eyes caught each of the demon hunters as they tried to take aim. Captured within her gaze, they each dropped their weapons one by one before walking half-hypnotized to the vampiress in a final eerie death march.

Of course, the technique only worked when someone tried to shoot her from the front.

“Behind you!” Buffy shouted out in alarm, at the same time using her human shield to cover herself as rushed her nearest attacker. She fell to the ground in a brief tussle with the human before efficiently snapping his neck.

Dru spun in time to see the shot fired. The movement was enough that the bolt hit her shoulder instead of her heart. With a roar of pain and anger, she ripped the bolt from her flesh and struck out at the demon hunter so quickly he couldn’t even see it coming.

Yellow, deranged eyes glistened in the night, a brief target for fire, but all too soon Drusilla had moved with that lightning quickness once more, taking out two more of their foes.

The sudden brutal assault to his lines had been enough to distract Wood for a moment, just enough to use his phone to call for back-up. But he didn’t let his men and women’s lives interfere with his sworn purpose. Turning back to his vendetta, he raised his stake against the vampire he’d hunted all these years…

And screamed as Spike pulled the world together long enough to sink his fangs deep into Wood’s leg.

Wood’s leg buckled out from underneath him, and he tried to strike, but then Buffy caught him from behind. Snapped his fingers right out of their sockets as she ripped the stake from his hand.

“This isn’t—” Wood began.

Buffy didn’t let him finish. Her fangs severed his jugular vein, and she took several deep pulls of his powerful blood before tossing him aside.

She spared brief notice for the fact that Drusilla had taken out the rest of Wood’s little crowd before rushing to her sire’s side and kneeling before him. He was curled up on the ground, clutching at his head, and whimpering in pain. Buffy saw multiple wounds, but nothing to account for this much distress.

“Spike?” she whispered carefully, reaching out hesitantly to stroke his hair.

“If you could make the world stop spinnin’, luv?” he managed with a ghost of his usual cockiness. “Would be ‘ppreciated.”

“What are you talking about?” Buffy asked anxiously, pulling the blood-soaked leather off of the wound on his shoulder and checking it. She hastily took off her sweater and ripped the fabric to bind the wound. No sense in letting him lose more blood than was absolutely necessary.

“Shot me with some drug…” Spike mumbled, accepting her hand to sit up. That turned out to be a bad idea, however, and he ended up collapsed against her, dry heaving.

Although it shouldn’t have been possible, Buffy’s face paled. “Oh…god…” she whimpered in horror. “I-It can’t be… You’re not…” He couldn’t be dying in her arms, right? No fate was that cruel…

“Just about to toss my cookies,” he assured her. “If I had any cookies to toss…” The dry heaving began anew.

Buffy breathed a sigh of relief and propped him up against her shoulder, stroking his back gently as he hacked up nothing. She wondered if it was a blessing or a curse that he hadn’t eaten anything yet tonight.

“What has the naughty man done to my beautiful boy?” Drusilla said in horror, finally coming to rest on Spike’s other side. Buffy let Dru take some of the weight, and they held him together.

“It’s just a drug of some sort,” Buffy insisted. “He’ll be all right.” _He has to_ , she added inwardly.

Drusilla cooed and placed a gentle kiss in his hair. He tried to purr at the tender affections suddenly being bestowed upon him, but that just made the sickness worse. “Don’t worry about it, my darling,” Dru soothed him. “Your girls will take care of you.” She met Buffy’s eyes.

“We’ve got everything,” Buffy agreed, a little whimper escaping her lips as she kissed his hair as well. God, so close to losing him…

Although apparently ‘everything’ entailed another fight because, at that moment, the back-up Wood had called arrived from inside the mansion, saw the trio of vampires, and attacked…

* * *

Xander took a staggering step back as Willow looked up at him, eyes wide and black as pitch, dark power crackling off her skin like static electricity.

“Uh, yeah,” Xander gulped, “about all this… I didn’t mean for—”

“Shut up, stupid boy!” Willow practically roared, and a lash of energy swept outward from her body, sending Xander flying back into the wall.

He fell to the ground with a whimper, tried to move to get up, and found his body unwilling to respond to his wishes. He was paralyzed where he lay.

Willow’s wrath wasn’t directed at him, however.

Ashes of her dead mate still clinging to her face and arms, she rose to her feet, hovering inches above the ground with the dark magic that had possessed her. A hiss of salty tears as the energy evaporated the water that still clung to her skin.

She took a deep breath, and the entire room seemed to breathe with her, vibrating with that alien power…

And, when she closed her eyes, she could see them all. Pathetic, insignificant little humans swarming through her home, attacking her guards, closing in on her mommy and daddy and Buffy. 

With a scream and a bright white explosion, the magic erupted from her body in midnight arcs, striking the attackers, jolting them painfully until their bodies exploded into ash. A fitting punishment for her own lover’s final end…

She could see her vampires regrouping, then, saw Buffy and Dru’s looks of relief when their battle was well and truly over. She paid them no mind, however. She had only one traitor left to deal with…

Her blackened eyes opened and stared directly at Xander.

Suddenly, he found himself able to move once again. He didn’t take comfort from that fact, however. The wicked smile on Willow’s face reminded him of a cat that’d just let the mouse think it had once last chance of escape. That look promised death and torture and…

Xander ran for the door anyway.

He was halted right in the frame by another jolt of energy that froze him in place. He tried to struggle against it, but it just pulled him back faster, ever closer to his demise. “I didn’t mean for this to happen!” he sobbed, pleading with her. “I loved Cordelia as much as you did!”

“Silence!” Willow screeched. “How dare you speak her name?!”

“I-I’m sorry,” Xander whimpered. “I…”

“You will suffer and die,” Willow informed him, “and nothing more.” Her hand clenched into a fist, and the energy spun him around, lifted him up off of the ground in a series of bright flashes. “You will _pay_ for your treachery, boy…” she hissed.

A soft-spoken cough cut her off. “I’m afraid we would object if you did so.”

Willow frowned and looked up to the doorway, startled when she saw Dalton there, looking quite apologetic. “I don’t care _who_ objects!” she snapped, striking out at him with another wave of power.

Dalton staggered back, and she turned back to her prey, intent on death and destruction once more.

“Oh dear…”

Willow looked up in surprise to see Dalton on his feet once more. “H-How did you…?”

And then a dark energy easily equal to Willow’s own flew into him, making him look stronger and more powerful than he ever would on his own. “I repeat,” his mouth moved, but echoes of hundreds of voices – each more terrifying than any being Willow had met personally – sounded from his throat, “we _strongly_ object.”

Willow shivered at the collective power that possessed Dalton. “I do not answer to you,” she insisted, “ _yet_.”

He/it/they considered that for a moment. “True,” they agreed in that strange stereo sound. “You may have a choice: Your power…or the boy.”

Willow faltered at that. She knew that they could take the Hellmouth from her if they wanted to. She’d been fortunate that they hadn’t so far. It had been everything she worked for, dreamed of… But always, in her mind’s eye, Cordelia had been there beside her. Xander deserved to suffer for taking that away from her, but if she gave into her vengeance, she lost _everything_ …

“The boy is yours,” she spat reluctantly, the power flowing from her body in a weary rush. She collapsed onto the bed, just plain old sadistic vampiric Willow once more.

Xander fell to the floor with a thud and gulped at the power that still radiated from Dalton. What was that old saying, out of the frying pan and into the fire?

“We thank you,” the Order said politely before Dalton’s body spasmed with power rushing out. He let out a little strangled cry before he, too, was back to normal. Meek and bookish as ever. He held out one hand to Xander and led the younger vampire with him, only to pause in the doorway for one last moment. “Oh, and my sincerest condolences,” he said apologetically.

Leaving Willow alone, stripped of her revenge, and sobbing in anguish at love lost…

* * *

“Big baby passed out,” Buffy joked lightly as Drusilla lay Spike down on their bed.

Dru smiled softly at that and climbed in beside him, pulling the covers up over their bodies. A series of chills was raking through his body now, and she held him close in an effort to ward them off.

Buffy watched the pair in bed, half-wistful, half-happy. They were so beautiful like this. Her sire deserved to be loved and, honestly, what had she ever been thinking trying to divide him from half that love? She only wished she’d seen it sooner…

“I can only warm one side, you know,” Dru tisked, cutting off Buffy’s pity party.

Wide hazel eyes regarded her for a second before, with an uncharacteristic blush, Buffy crawled into bed on Spike’s other side, cradling him between them.

Drusilla smiled lazily at Buffy, and her fingers twined with the blonde’s. “This is how it’s supposed to be.”

Buffy smiled at that as well and yawned. “Tell me it’s over now,” she pleaded.

“It’s over,” Dru agreed, “for now. Now, let’s make our boy better.”

Buffy couldn’t think of anything she’d rather do.


	8. Chapter 8

_Top Ten Signs Your Sire Has Finally Fully Recovered: #1. You wake up one evening stripped naked, handcuffed spread-eagled on the bed, to see the aforementioned sire equally naked and grinning down at you mischievously while fondling a knife._

“Feeling better?” Buffy ventured, gulping at the blade Spike was twirling between his fingers. A delicious combination on fear and anticipation shuddered through her body.

“Right as rain, luv,” he agreed, smirking even wider when she tested the cuffs that held her.

“Uh…good to hear…” Buffy leaned her head to one side to find the source of the amused giggling. Drusilla, also nude, had as wicked a look on her face as Spike did. That look promised pain but, oh, sweet pleasure as well…

“Someone’s been a naughty girl,” Dru sing-songed.

“Naughty, indeed,” Spike agreed. “I think she needs to be punished, don’t you, pet?”

Dru clapped her excitedly. “Oh yes,” she agreed.

Buffy got nervous at that, trying to shift uncomfortably on the bed, but found herself unable to move enough to do so. She wet her lips, looked back and forth between them. “What are you…?” Suddenly, she found herself unable to finish her question. She didn’t know whether it was because she didn’t want to spoil the surprise or she just didn’t want to know.

Spike sighed and knelt on the bed between her feet. Slowly, he crawled over her body, pale skin sliding over powerful muscles. Buffy couldn’t help but gasp in eager anticipation of that beautiful body descending upon hers, taking her hard…

Spike set the knife down on the mattress beside her, sniffed the air and grinned. “Excited to see me?” he teased.

“Mmm,” she purred in agreement, wanting to thrust up against his rock-hard erection but frustratingly unable to move that far.

He leaned in close and licked a sensuous line up the side of her face. “Want me to give it to you?”

Buffy had played enough games to catch the double-meaning. But, yeah, if he wanted to punish her for what she’d done, he was well within his rights. “Yes,” she agreed breathlessly, inwardly steeling herself up in case pleasure wasn’t her reward.

“Don’t worry, luv,” he murmured in her ear so softly she could barely hear it. Sitting back, he took up the knife once more, studied her. “You know what it does to me to see one of my girls hurt?” he asked curiously, head cocked to one side. Lightning-quick, the hand with the knife whipped out, leaving a shallow cut on her right arm.

Buffy hissed at the brief sting of pain and felt her demon trying to rise up to the surface again at the scent of blood. “No,” she replied, proud of the steadiness of her own voice.

“Cuts me too, luv,” he informed her. Her eyes widened and a gasp escaped her lips when he mirrored the cut on his own body, slicing his left forearm.

Drusilla whimpered and cooed, sitting at the head of the bed now and gently stroking Buffy’s hair.

The tip of the knife found Buffy’s collarbone and trailed it lovingly. “You think you can trust someone,” Spike began casually, blue eyes distant, “think you know ‘em…”

Buffy shivered, unsure of what he was going to do.

“And then,” his voice hardened, and once more the blade drew blood, just above her breast this time, “they do somethin’ to hurt you you never believed they’d do.”

Buffy saw the raw pain – and maybe even a little fear – in his eyes then, and she so wanted to console him. Promise him the world, and assure him it wouldn’t happen again. She winced when the knife cut the flesh of his upper pectoral muscle. Strange how the wounds he inflicted on himself seemed to hurt more than the ones on her own body…

Spike sighed wearily. “I get why you did it, pet,” he informed her conversationally. “Really, I do.” He turned to look at Drusilla and smiled softly, remembering times long past. “I remember how it feels to love someone so deeply but fear that you’ll never truly have them…”

Drusilla smiled back, looking almost innocent then. She reached out to Spike with one hand, and their fingers clasped lightly. And, for a second, Buffy saw them as they both could have been. Two pure, innocent humans consumed by love for each other, happy together until their inevitable deaths. There was a sad poetry to their loss, and a beauty that in these new unlives they could have so much more than either ever could have during a mortal life-span.

But then their fingers drifted apart again, and the brief spell was broken.

“I get why you did it,” Spike repeated a bit huskily, attention all on Buffy now, “but, luv… ‘ve always been here for you. Don’t you see it? We’ve always been one…”

Buffy was so caught up in the drowning blue of his eyes that she barely even felt the cut to her inner thigh. Spike mirrored the motion on his own body as he had before, and not even he could keep from wincing at the knife that close to his most sensitive bits.

Drusilla even turned away in an uncharacteristic display of squeamishness.

“Can’t you feel it?” Spike practically pleaded with Buffy, tossing the knife aside and lying his body over hers. 

The thin lines of blood on their flesh lined up perfectly, pressed together, stung, but also felt _amazing_. Buffy gasped as she felt their essences mingling, and in that moment she knew that he was right. They were one and the same. And he and Dru were as well. And it wasn’t a conflict of any sorts. All three of them belonged together, like this.

“Yes,” she whispered, practically weeping at the intensity of the moment. Her tears stained his cheek as they pressed together. Or maybe it was his tears on her cheek. She couldn’t tell anymore because it just didn’t matter. “I can feel it…”

A shudder of relief and ecstasy shook Spike’s body, as if he’d been afraid that she wouldn’t get it. “There’s my clever girl,” he whispered, his voice ragged. “Always learns her lessons so well.”

She couldn’t help but smile. “Only because you make them so much fun, with physical aids and everything,” she teased lightly.

He laughed, and then he kissed her, and she kissed him back, and it was the most perfect thing she’d ever experienced.

Somehow he’d slipped inside her, and she could feel him filling her to completion, but that wasn’t the source of her pleasure. One-by-one Drusilla released the chains that bound her, and she wrapped her limbs tightly around his body, kissing him with everything she had, everything she _was_.

Never, in all her decades of existence, had she realized that lovemaking could be this sweet…

* * *

Willow watched the sun’s rays slowly retreat back through the metal slats in the blinds. She’d opened them the previous morning, thinking that the sun would come take her in her sleep. But she’d been restless in bed without the familiar form of her lover by her side, and she hadn’t slept a wink.

And, when it came to that final moment of decision, Willow didn’t want to end her unlife.

 _Especially_ since Cordelia’s killer still lived. Her hands clenched into fists at the very notion, and she wondered for the thousandth time if she’d made the right choice. Would the pain she felt now be any less if she’d watched Xander’s limbs writhe in agony, heard his pleas for mercy, seen his body crumble to ash?

With a hiss of pain she realized that her nails had cut so deep into her hand that they’d drawn blood. A wave of rage took over her, and she ripped at the sheets before her, shredding them with demonic claws.

Echoes of Cordelia’s final cry sounded through the room, and Willow drowned them out with death and destruction. That was what she was good at, after all.

When the bed was bare save scraps of fine emerald silk and the mattress spilled its filling, creating a fine dust in the evening light, Willow turned back to the window.

She watched the sun fade from her life, and she mourned.

And then she turned back to her power because that was all she had left. Like a vengeful fury, she stormed from her room, naked and uncaring. The few minions that were foolish enough to stare got their heads separated from their bodies.

 _Pathetic, worthless males… Lechers and traitors, the lot of them…_

She entered the library in a violent explosion. It was a good thing Dalton had chosen that one night not to be present because otherwise she’d have ripped him limb from limb.

As it was, Willow snatched up the first spell book she found. From the most dangerous section she owned, of course.

Flipping it open, her rage switched from physical to metaphysical. Deceptively calm on the outside – although still incongruously nude – Willow sat down, book in lap, and read.

And read.

And read.

She would show them all. She’d become so terrifyingly powerful that even the Order would tremble at her feet. She’d make them pay for the decision they’d forced her into, and then she’d take her revenge on that _boy_ anyway.

A slow smile spread across Willow’s lips as she read. Power might not be able to warm her heart, but it warmed her hatred quite nicely…

* * *

Dalton hadn’t said a word all day. He’d simply sat in the corner chair of the small room he’d been given for his stay and engrossed himself in the pages of an old tome.

That suited Xander just fine.

The fear and adrenaline of seeing Willow at her utmost nastiness were beginning to wear off, and a gentle numbness started taking their places. But not an all-encompassing numbness. No, that would be far too generous. Instead, only those distractions he had clung to were washed away, leaving him with the clear image of Cordelia’s death, playing in horrifying slow motion, over and over again his brain.

Her eyes…

God, her eyes in those final moments. Xander slumped to the floor and curled against the wall, whimpering. Everyone had always said that vampires had no conscience. But he imaged those eyes would haunt him for a good long while.

Accusing him, hating him, mocking him…

Because, in the end, Cordelia had chosen Willow. Despite everything he’d done for her, all he could have given her, that bitch witch’s brainwashing won out. Xander hated Willow even more for that – for wrapping Cordy so tightly around her little finger that his sire had given up her life.

And, in those moments, he made a promise to himself. He promised that one day he’d find the power to destroy Willow once and for all. He’d make her pay for what she’d done to Cordy.

Because the thought that this was largely _his_ fault was unbearable. As was the notion that Cordelia had ever truly loved Willow. Lies were always safer, especially if you believed them…

He looked to Dalton for the first time, then, assessing the other vamp. He felt weak and relatively powerless, just like Xander. But Xander had seen him wield power that had made Willow tremble. Power that one day he might learn to use.

He licked his lips in anticipation. “Just what does this Order of yours want with me, anyway?” he asked, his voice sounding loud and hollow in the quiet room…

* * *

Buffy purred and curled around Spike’s body, smiling when Drusilla lay down behind her. This felt wonderful, wrapped between her two lovers, safe within their protective arms.

“Pet?” Spike murmured sleepily, looking up at her with big, blue eyes.

“Yeah?” she asked with a soft smile, reaching up to caress his platinum curls.

“Don’t do it again,” he grinned.

Buffy scowled at him. “That’s a given,” she sulked, annoyed.

Drusilla giggled and sighed. “Our poor dark pixie. Poor, poor pretty thing caught in the middle,” she sighed, one arm reaching over Buffy to rest on Spike’s waist.

Buffy started at that, recognizing the words from the prophecy Dru had spoken back in England. “What are you talking about?” she asked, confused. “What about Cordelia?”

“Loved by both and caught between them,” Drusilla smiled that knowing smile. “They loved her so, but they hated each other more.” She sighed. “If only they’d loved each other better…”

Buffy shivered. “You weren’t talking about Spike at all,” she realized with sudden relief. The thought that that prophecy could loom up yet another day was something she’d been afraid to consider.

Dru just looked at her blankly, false innocence on her face.

Buffy frowned. “Wait a minute… You didn’t remember that trance. How can you…?” she trailed off, confused. “You knew all along?” she asked, confused.

“Mommy cannot imagine what her darling girl is referring to,” Dru shushed her with that mischievous smile.

“You knew it wasn’t Spike that was going to die the whole time,” Buffy accused. “You let me believe… Why?”

“If I hadn’t seen Spike die, would you have stopped in time?” Dru asked curiously.

Buffy frowned at that. “Did you see him, or didn’t you?” she demanded.

Riddles and enigmas swirled in the backs of Dru’s eyes. But the elder vampiress merely yawned and went to sleep.

Buffy’s brow furrowed at the conundrum before retiring into the arms of her family once more. She was starting to see why Spike had stayed with Drusilla for so long. Such mysteries would surely take an eternity to unravel…

* * *

The ceremony that made Willow Master of the Hellmouth was surprisingly magic-free. Just a bit of ritual combined with millennia’s worth of bureaucracy, tweaking every little detail. Spike yawned when the liturgies kept going on and on and…

Drusilla scowled at him and tried to look prim in her seat. Almost as if the leftover Catholic instincts from her nunnery days were kicking in and ordering her to behave herself in church.

Buffy smiled at Spike’s predicament and reached over to take his hand in hers. Their fingers clasped lightly, played with rings and caresses. Thighs brushed casually.

It was amazing how much faster tedious events went when they were at each other’s side.

Willow remained cold and rigid throughout, eyes never once straying to where Xander fairly cowered in fear in the back of the room. Blank eyes watched Dalton as he made his pronouncements. And, only once the deal had finally been completed with the bond of blood, did she allow herself a small smile.

The Hellmouth was all she had now. And, oh, she would rule it…

Xander fled as soon as Dalton was done.

Leisurely, Buffy, Spike, and Drusilla followed. Buffy caught Xander’s hopeful but fearful eyes on her, but she ignored him. She’d felt sympathy for him once, and it had made her trust him. But now it was too obvious that he’d wanted Spike dead from the beginning. And that was a betrayal she wasn’t likely to forget anytime soon.

They left the mansion behind to enjoy the last few hours of night together.

Drusilla twirled about in the night breeze and then, on one pass, snatched the ribbon right out of Buffy’s hair.

Buffy let out a little exclamation of protest before chasing after her sister, laughing all the while.

Spike chuckled when Dru managed to pirouette perfectly away from Buffy’s lunges. After Buffy’s first few tries, he jumped in to help.

The three of them ended up at the top of a small hill in Shady Hill Cemetery, tangled on the ground as they fought over the ribbon and laughing out into the night.

Finally vanquished, Dru collapsed atop them, head in Spike’s lap and feet in Buffy’s. “I feel like visiting some place with thunder next,” she sighed. “Wind and bright lightning that cuts across the sky.”

“Sounds lovely, pet,” Spike agreed, handing Buffy her hair ribbon back with a small smile.

“I’m game,” Buffy agreed, tying her hair back in place and giving Dru’s foot a playful swat in retaliation.

Drusilla just laughed. “Our golden girl is complete once more,” she announced, fingers angled in a little picture window through which she looked at Buffy’s restored ponytail.

“Or not so golden at the moment,” Spike chuckled, pointedly tapping her hairline where the brown was starting to grow back in.

“Speak for yourself, rootboy,” Buffy retorted.

Spike sighed and lay back, bringing Drusilla’s head to rest on his stomach. “Think ‘m getting tired of the bleach,” he announced. “What would you girls think of black?”

Buffy sniffed. “But it’s so _pretty_ white!” she insisted.

“You could always compromise and dye it gray,” Dru teased.

Spike tried to scowl down at her. She couldn’t see, of course. “Thanks ever so for the helpful suggestion there, pet,” he retorted sarcastically.

“I still want to see it red,” Dru pointed out.

Spike snorted. “ _You_ go redhead, and I will,” he shot back.

Buffy shuddered. “No thank you. I’ve had enough of redheads for now.”

Dru seemed to sober at that. “Poor pixie,” she said sadly, “so full of hate… It really is best that we leave before her eyes stretch further.”

“We’ll worry ‘bout it all tomorrow,” Spike announced. His hand reached out for Buffy’s, and she lay back on the grass as well, turned at an angle so that their heads were almost touching. “Right now I just wanna enjoy the night…”

They were silent, then, staring up at the stars – and, possibly in Dru’s case, speaking with them – listening to the sounds of night, savoring each other’s touch.

And when the first pink line of the sun touched the horizon, they reluctantly got up to go, banished within closed walls once more.

Buffy took Dru’s hand and helped her up. Smiled mischievously, and then shoved her into Spike so hard, they both toppled. “Race you home,” she shot back at Dru, already taking off with a laugh.

Dru mock-growled at ran after, Spike trailing behind their little race to the mansion. Dru caught Buffy right at the threshold and felt the childish impulse to stick her tongue out. She did so.

And Buffy laughed and kissed her.

“My childe should know by now that mommy always wins,” Dru scolded.

Buffy smiled softly. “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she whispered, “sire…”

End Book Two


End file.
